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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24564646">Winds of Eternia</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Nerd/pseuds/J_Nerd'>J_Nerd</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018), Treasure Planet (2002)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate She-Ra, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Alternate family history, Betrayal, Did Our Duty For Archive And Fandom, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, She-Ra bloodline, Slow Burn, Space Pirates, This is gonna be a wild ride guys, idk yet, mature rating for language gore and some sexy situation, sexy situation, these idiots do fall in love though, we might get some smut we might not</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:08:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>29,535</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24564646</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Nerd/pseuds/J_Nerd</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>From a young age, Adora Hawkins dreamed of sailing the great Eternian sea in search of adventure and freedom. Growing up hearing the riveting tales of the legendary pirate Captain James Hordak and his famed ship The Black Cutlass, Adora wanted nothing more than to take to the skies and stake her claim by finding the fabled resting place of Hordak’s boundless treasure: the loot of a thousand worlds. So when a map falls into her lap it’s only fitting Adora follow her dreams, right? Never mind the growing shadow of something sinister following…something with teeth and claws and a whole lot of firepower.</p><p>OR</p><p>The She-Ra/Treasure Planet slow burn Catadora fic absolutely no one asked for but you're getting anyway</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow &amp; Glimmer (She-Ra)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>256</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>265</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Y'all, I have crawled out of fandom retirement to give you this fic, and it's all thanks to @erzatscarlet You want gay pirates? You want Catradora enemies to friends to lovers ON A PIRATE SHIP?! I got you fam.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“On the clearest of nights,” the wizened old voice said, plucking the words from the storybook and breathing life into them in the special way only a master storyteller could, “when the winds of Etheria were calm and peaceful, the great merchant ship with their cargo of Salineasian lunar crystals and Etherian silver ore felt safe and secure. Little did they suspect they were pursued by <em>pirates</em>.”</p><p>Adora’s whole body leaned into the word, vibrating at a frequency only a five-year-old up past their bedtime with their favorite－and only－grandmother peering up at her over the rim of her absolute favorite storybook could achieve. Gran Razz’s black eyes sparkled behind her thick-lensed glasses, the mischief in them as infectious as her grin.</p><p>“And the most feared of all these pirates was the notorious,” Gran dropped her voice to a whisper as if the mere mention of the devil’s name would pluck him from death’s steely grip, “<em>Captain James Hordak</em>!”</p><p>Static tingles raced up Adora’s spine, making her squeal in delight and kick her feet under the covers. Her tiny little mind perfectly pictured Hordak’s famed Ripper Ship <em>The Black Cutlass</em> cutting like a black-ion blade through the hull of an unsuspecting frigate. In fact, that image was shown to her in all it’s awesome detail when Gran Razz turned the book with a, “Ha!”, letting the orb lamp on the dresser illuminate the colorful illustrations of the exact moment Hordak brought a merchant ship to its knees.</p><p>“Sperge of the Nine Seas!” Adora exploded, her missing front teeth dampening her enunciation.</p><p>“King of the pirates!” Gran Razz crowed triumphantly. “Most loathed and feared devil ever to fly the black flag!”</p><p>“Pirate king! Pirate king!” Adora chanted, crawling to her knees.</p><p>Gran Razz grabbed the storybook on either side of its open cover and made it fly through the air like a fleeing vessel, her wrinkly lips puckered as she mimicked the sounds of cannon fire and the choked cries of sailors leaping to their deaths. Giggling in delight－all thought of bedtime evaporating－Adora took to chasing the book, an imaginary black-ion sword in hand. Tucking into a ball in an attempt to avoid another broadside from Gran, she rolled off the bed and popped up with a cry, that same imaginary sword hacking pirates and civilians to pieces, it was hard for a five-year-old to distinguish between the two.</p><p>“Have at, thee, pirate scum! You won’t get away with a single drop of our ore!” Gran Razz challenged with a throaty growl, drawing her own sword and clashing blades with her granddaughter.</p><p>“Gonna blast yeh out of the sky,” Adora growled back, the tip of her tongue pressed into the front two spaces where her teeth should have been. Their laughter was as infectious as it was wild right up until the bedroom door banged open with a sharp crack, startling them both.</p><p>“Adora Rizzo Hawkins!” The exasperated cry cut through their fun like a cannonball through a hull, bringing the women both to heel. Framed in the doorway, Mara Hawkins glared at the two from her slouch against the frame, arms folded tightly over her chest.</p><p>Swordplay forgotten in lieu of real terror－which was being caught out of bed almost two hours past her bedtime－Adora beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of her bed and the shelter of her covers. Maybe she let a few giggles slip along the way. Maybe they were just flying sound effect. Who’s to know?</p><p>“Mara Dear!” Gran Razz greeted, taking a heavy seat on the edge of the bed and looking about as sheepish as the young blonde peeking out from over the hem of her quilt.</p><p>“Mother! I told you to get her to bed on time tonight!” Mara groaned, eyes heavy with exhaustion her body hadn’t quite registered yet. Her brown hair was braided back as usual but lacked its careful placement, frizzing at the edges and unkempt near her temples. Another hard night at the factory, it seemed.</p><p>“Bedtime stories are an important tradition in our household, dear,” Gran Razz tutted. “I read them to you, and little Adora will hear them just the same.”</p><p>“Like pies are tradition?” Adora pipped up hoping to earn leniency by changing the subject but earning a glare instead. Well, one chuckle, one glare. It was a mixed room tonight, so she tried another tactic.</p><p>“But Mama, we were just getting to the best part!” she pouted, holding the discarded book against her chest and adding her politest, “<em>Please</em>?” at the end.</p><p>Beside her, Gran Razz put on the same pathetic display－lip thrust out, eyes huge behind her glasses, gray hair a chaotic frizz barely held back by her headband－that held Mara in place for a heartbeat more before the woman caved like a stack of falling cards.</p><p>“Between the two of you, I’ll never get a moment’s rest,” she sighed good-naturedly, throwing up her arms as she dropped her bag by the door.</p><p>“You could always do with a good bedtime story too, Mara Dear,” Gran smiled, pecking her daughter on the temple as she circled to the opposite side of the bed, the older women effectively sandwiching Adora between her two favorite people.</p><p>“You read the last part!” the little blonde implored, setting the book on her mother’s thigh as she got comfortable.</p><p>“Okay, okay. Where did you leave off?”</p><p>“There!” Adora paddled through the book until she found the illustration and excitedly turned the page. “It’s my favorite part! When Hordak swoops in and takes the merchant ship.”</p><p>“Why couldn’t you have liked something arbitrary like gardening?” Mara teased, rustling Adora’s hair and making her giggle.</p><p>“She comes by it honestly,” Gran Razz chuckled, giving her daughter a knowing look the younger woman didn’t reciprocate. Instead, she cleared her throat and focused on the page.   </p><p>“Like a Scroop Baboon overtaking its prey,” Mara read, opening her arm so her daughter could snuggle closer, “Hordak and his band of renegades swooped in out of nowhere!”</p><p>The next few illustrations were some of Adora’s favorites. Hordak at the prow of <em>The Black Cutlass</em> while his men plunged stabilization hooks that looked like mantis arms into the opposing air-Ship’s upper deck. Outlined in golds and reds and billowing smoke, he stood like the famed devil he was, black ion-blade thrust out and mouth wide in a shouted command for his men to board. Adora thought she could hear the clashing of ion-blades against Etherian ore rapiers, the hiss and sizzle as sparks flew like the ones in the next set of illustrations. Her blues eyes greedily gobbled up every drop, fueling her inflating imagination.</p><p>“And then, gathering up their spoils, Hordak and his crew…vanished without a <em>trace</em>.”</p><p>“Ooooo,” all three women intoned at once, eyes on the page showing <em>The Black Cutlass </em>going into warp speed and zooming out of frame.</p><p>“Hordak’s secret trove was never found,” Mara continued in a voice like it was a secret. “But stories have persisted that it remains hidden somewhere at the farthest reaches of the galaxy. Stowed with riches beyond imagination and guarded with power unforeseen and unfathomable. The loot of a thousand worlds. <em>Planet Etheria.</em>”</p><p>Adora whispered the name right along with her mother, eagerness and awe in every syllable.</p><p>“Okay,” Mara announced after closing the book with a thump. “Now we’re actually going to bed.”</p><p>Adora wilted, flopping back on her pillows with a huff, too excited to even thing about sleep－which was a lie, she was exhausted, but stubbornness lived in her veins. “But Mama!”</p><p>“No buts, love. We both have an early morning.”</p><p>Now she was definitely pouting. Adora didn’t want to think about school and the new class she was moving into. She liked her old one. Why did she have to move again?</p><p>“But how do you think he did it, Mama? How did Captain Hordak swoop in out of nowhere,” she persisted, pantomiming the action of a diving ship and then scurrying under the covers like a rabbit seeking shelter, “and vanish without a trace?”</p><p>From the bed beside her, Gran Razz chuckled softly as she moved off the shallow mattress, shaking her head as if to say ‘I wound her up, so my job is done. Have fun!’.</p><p>“I have no idea,” Mara admitted wistfully, pretending to be deep in through before pouncing on her daughter with a cry and wrestling her out from under the covers. They laughed and struggled, Adora squealing when her mother blew a raspberry against the ticklish skin of her stomach.</p><p>“Okay, okay, it’s now time for this little Spacer to <em>get some sleep.</em>”</p><p>A yawn half the size of her body stopped any further objections, and Adora allowed herself to be tucked into bed properly this time. “Do you think anyone will ever find Planet Etheria?”</p><p>“Sweetheart, I think it’s more…” her mother scrambled for the right words, twisting her face in the process. “Like a legend!”</p><p>Adora’s little face set in a steadfast frown, the blue of her eyes particularly bright this evening. “I <em>know </em>it’s real. I feel it in my toes.”</p><p>“Your toes, huh?”</p><p>“My big one, specially. It’s right there.”</p><p>“Well, I certainly can’t refute toe logic, so I say, my little Spacer, Planet Etheria is real if you think it is.” Mara leaned in and kissed her daughter’s forehead, moving off to join her mother at the door. They both said their ‘I love yous’ and took their leave, but if they thought for a single moment Adora was going to fully succumb to rest they were sorely mistaken.</p><p>They left the book behind. Mistake number two.</p><p>Little fingers finding the switch on her orb light, Adora lit the lamp enough it wouldn’t alert anyone to her mischief and flipped to the last page, those same small fingers sliding over her favorite illustration of all. A lone figure on the railing of a massive frigate with a cutlass in hand, silhouetted by a nebula galaxy made up of a dizzying array of yellow, reds, purples, and pinks. White-hot stars pricked the colorful quilt of entangled gasses, providing a guiding light for the voyager.</p><p>Adora wiggled like her body could barely contain the carbonated excitement back building in her chest, imagining what it would be like to fly an air-Ship. Staring up at her ceiling, she watched the roving constellation program Gran had made her make its circuit across the slats and caught sight of a lone shooting star.</p><p>“Someday,” she vowed to the empty space in her heart shaped exactly like the promise to come, “I’m going to be the best Spacer in the world, and I’m going to sail to Planet Etheria and find that treasure.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Trial and Error</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Magnetics holding steady,” Adora announced, her voice ripped away by the roar of the wind doing its level best of tear her blonde ponytail out by the follicles.</p><p>“Once again,” a worried voice cracked in her earpiece, barely audible over the constant roar. “You really shouldn’t be doing this. In fact, there’s no '<em>really'</em>. You should not be doing this.”</p><p>“Come on, Bow! Where’s your sense of exploration? I thought you were a scientist!” She grinned wildly into the sting, adjusting her boots on the circular booster pucks so they locked in place. A few shakes of her lead bar got the sails of her solar rig back into direct sunlight.</p><p>“I am! You’re a nineteen-year-old idiot!”</p><p>“Wow. Sorry I’m not a fancy nineteen-year-old University boy like <em>someone I know.</em>”</p><p>“If you were smart, you’d join me instead of sneaking out past your curfew!”</p><p>“Well, I’m not!” Adora cackled before realizing what she’d admitted to and doubled back. “Going to University, I’m mean. I’m smart. Solar absorption at ninety percent. Sails holding at…” She checked the stats on her holo-Pad strapped to her arm, the glitchy screen showing her real-time specs, but the numbers made her lips twist in a slight grimace. They could be better. She should have used that copper wire nicked from the scrappers last week. Better conductivity. Oh well. Her patchwork would have to do. “Well, they’re holding.”</p><p>“Oh my god, you’re going to kill yourself,” Bow groaned. He was speaking in a hushed whisper that Adora had to strain to hear, meaning he was either in class or near the Benbow Inn.</p><p>“Tell my mom and gran I love them.”</p><p>“That’s not funny, Adora!”</p><p>“You get all my rigs. Cover for me, okay? I’m going radio silent.”</p><p>“Don’t you da－”</p><p>Bow’s heated exclamation was cut off mid-explosion, the earpiece going silent with a flick of the switch, leaving Adora to privately chance fate. She was eating ground faster than a kite stuck in the teeth of a hurricane, but so long as her grav-Rig held up, careening off the edge of a cliff into empty space wouldn’t plummet her to her death.</p><p>That was the plan, anyway.</p><p>Adora saw the drop long before her board reached the proverbial edge, terra firma giving way to the vastness of open sky. Adrenaline made the grin splitting her face almost reach her ears. No safety net. No parachute. If this whole experiment went south they’d be peeling her broken carcass off the rocks in the quarry below.</p><p>“Activate holo-Lense!” she called and a split second later a transparent holographic stripe went across her field of vision, green and blue stats hovering in her periphery as the program began recording.  </p><p>Like a golden arrow caked in rust and held together with welds, tape, and a whole lot of wishful thinking, Adora shot off the cliff and felt her stomach swoop as the miniature grav-Rig kicked in at the same moment her boosters belched to life, carrying her up and away from earth.</p><p>“Rig is looking good!” she crowed, the holo-Lens recording her input automatically and sending it to Bow via video－she wouldn’t let the poor boy suffer in silence. “Adjust boosters to 40 percent. Let’s start this climb.”</p><p>Higher she flew, folding the solar sail in with a twitch of her boot and letting the cool kiss of low-lying clouds dust her cheeks with mist. In another heartbeat, she was rising past them and ascending into a realm seldom visited by shipless mortals.</p><p>The endless expanse of blue sky enveloped her in arms of light and wind. For a split second, there was nothing between Adora and the rest of the world. No fear. No anxiety-inducing thoughts of the future and its infinite bleakness. No crushing reality of having to continuously prove her worth.</p><p>Up here, she was no one.</p><p>Up here, she was god, floating in a kingdom of light, clouds, and thin air.</p><p>But all gods fall at some point, and reality was as much a nemesis as gravity. Slowly, Adora tipped backward and began her descent. Head thrown back and eyes closed, she felt like she was rising more than falling, the drag of her board keeping her aloft for just a few seconds more.</p><p>Say one thing for Adora Hawkins. When she committed to a fall she did it in style: sky at her feet and the world above her, upside down like her life had always been.</p><p>Acrobatically, she twisted her body in a series of tight spins, turning her board into a whirling blade like those trees that threw off helicopter seeds in the fall. The turbulence slowed her descent enough she could calculate her intended trajectory with a speed her old tutors could barely touch, the numbers a blur behind her eyes.</p><p>Six seconds to impact.</p><p>Five: she was grinning like a fool, staring death in the face.</p><p>Four: her heart beat like a hummingbird behind the cage of her ribs.</p><p>Three: reckless freedom made her a wild thing, golden power singing in her veins, blurring the edges of her body and reality.</p><p>Two: that blur snapped into crystal-clear focus so sharp Adora could count the individual grains of sand below. In a twist that should have snapped her spine, she brought her board back to earth and activated her sail, the reserve solar energy blasting the whole rig forward with enough force to render her temporarily blind had it not been for the holo-Lens.</p><p>Adora was a bullet, a cannonball, an arrow loosed from a bow left to careen across the dusty earth like a scream. Or maybe that was her screaming, the sound pure chaotic joy in her ears. Speed and momentum dictating her path, she hardly saw the barricade splinter to pieces as she flew through it, the colossal structure of the East End foundry rising up to claw at the sky like a mechanical beast.</p><p>If Bow was watching, he was about to have a heart attack.</p><p>Somewhere in the back of her mind－where rationality lay pinned under the weight of reckless experimentation－Adora felt the brief twinge of guilt. She shouldn’t be doing this. Skipping out－again－to practice her theorems and experiments. Taking risks－again－for a cheap thrill. She was on probation, for god’s sake! Her last solar ride landed her square in the middle of a cantic-crop field, the heat from her overheating boosters lighting half the fragile wheat on fire－though, to be fair, the corporate farmer had just left it out there to rot. Her broken harm had only <em>just </em>healed yet here she was.  </p><p>If she fucked up again it would put her in the cross hairs for a one-way ride to the detention center, but she was onto something with the redesign of her commercial grav-Rigs and magnetic adhesion. And yes, maybe there was a bit of recklessness at play, but Bow always said the scientific method was only recognized by rigorous trial and error, and Adora had a lot of tests to run.</p><p>Granted, Bow was probably tearing his hair out watching her weaving through a foundry at twice the speed a solar surfer was supposed to go.</p><p>Details.</p><p>Speed was her mission anyway. In order to test the last of her modifications she needed to move as fast as humanly possible on her board, and if that meant she had to grind and few railings and half-pipe up a few walls in the process so be it. No one was around. The foundry was automated. The only person at risk of death or maiming was her…so it was all a win-win.</p><p>Spying her next target, Adora squared up, digging a small device from her jacket pocket as she flew straight for the massive churning digger taking mountain-sized swipes out of the earth. Every so many seconds, a gap appeared as the buckets rotated on their circular spokes and carried the raw material away. A human couldn’t fit into it but a board easily could. The human in question would have to dive over the digger and hope for the best.</p><p>“Come on,” Adora growled, lining herself up and rolling a small manual toggle into her palm. It had a button meant for one purpose and one purpose only: to disengage and re-engage her magnetic boots. “Come on, come one, <em>come on</em>!”</p><p>Back heel slamming into the acceleration puck, Adora leaned into the sudden roaring wind－arms thrust back to help maintain her aerodynamics－and took a breath. She only got one shot. The massive metal wheel loomed like a mechanical giant preparing to do battle with her, the spoke opening and closing, enveloping her focus.</p><p>Open, close. Open, close…<em>now</em>!</p><p>Legs chambered, she jumped with a mighty shout and sailed over the moving buckets in a tight somersault, the shoulder of her right arm brushing the rusted metal of a rotating bucket. For one heart-stopping moment, Adora didn’t think she would clear the wheel, but then she was on the other side and falling into two hundred feet of open air. Like clockwork, her solar board zipped into view and she hit the toggle again, calling the machine to the magnetized metal of her feet. Even at a considerable distance, the magnets worked.</p><p>The move took less than five seconds and cost her about a year of her life.</p><p>“YES!” she screamed, activating the sail and powering off another boost to carry her into the triumphant sunset. “Oh my god, yes! It worked! The magnetics and grav-Rig work! Bow! Bow, it worked! I told you it would－”</p><p>The spine-liquefying chirp of a siren and the lurch of her board being hit by a momentum deterrent laser alerted her to two stomach-dropping things. One, there were Auto-Cops behind her. Two…there were Auto-Cops behind her.</p><p>“Oh brilliant,” she groaned, releasing her grip and allowing the robo officers to guide her to the ground. A quick flick of her wrist detracted the holo-Lens and sent the info to Bow before erasing the program. Better safe than sorry. “Absolutely wonderful.”     </p><p>“Citizen,” one of the Auto-Cops began once they were on the ground and Adora had stepped away from her solar board. “I am Officer－”</p><p>“Sprocket, I know,” Adora answered with a sigh, shoving her hands into the deep pockets of her red jacket and freezing. The bot had already scanned her for weapons so the move wouldn’t end with her face first in the dust, but she still mentally screamed at herself for doing it.</p><p>“Officer <em>Bolt</em>,” the Auto-Cop scowled…if one could call it a scowl. With their body and facial construction the identical square-jawed ‘don’t-fuck-with-us’ robo-design, they were impossible to tell apart.</p><p>“Sorry. <em>Officer Bolt</em>.”</p><p>“License of flier registration,” the other officer intoned, who was probably Sprocket, hand out and waiting.</p><p>“Guys, come on,” Adora said, pouring on the charm as much as possible, sweeping stray strands of blonde hair off her face. “You know who I am. Your Detectives are always at the Benbow. This…this is just a little trespassing and--”</p><p>“License refusal initiated. Facial scan complete. Identified as Adora R. Hawkins. Civilian resident. Negative ten license status.” Officer Bolt read off from his internal mainframe, and Adora knew she was well and truly screwed.</p><p>“Shit, really? I thought it was only at negative five--”</p><p>“License status, suspended. License status now revoked and offending vehicle impounded.”</p><p>“Revoked!” Adora’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “You can’t do that! I have to see a judge－”</p><p>“Are you activating the judicial initiative to contest our ruling which would grant a judicial authority complete access to your current case and file, and are you－”</p><p>“No!” she practically screamed but managed to calm herself fast enough the officers didn’t press the issue. If they moved her complaint to a contest there was a very real possibility it would alert her probation officer about her current whereabouts, which was the last thing she needed.</p><p>“No, I do not wish to contest,” she muttered to her boots.</p><p>“Contest form nullified. You will be escorted back to your place of residence and a citation will be sent directly to your bank. Further court filings may be necessary at your expense.”</p><p>Adora felt her heart plunge into her stomach and hit every rib on the way down. More money her mother would never see. More taken out of their already tiny savings account. More guilt.</p><p><em>Yeah, you did this to yourself, though. Remember that when you see the disappointment in mom’s eyes when they wheel you home</em>, a slimy part of herself chuckled in the back of her mind.</p><p>“Fucking wonderful…”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Consequences</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bow’s pen tapped an agitated rhythm on the table like a woodpecker trying and failing to root out a tasty snack. No one paid him any mind, which was for the best. Eyes glued on his personal holo-Pad, he’d gone through several facial journeys and almost upended his table while sitting near the back of the Benbow Inn. Usually, the seclusion－and the fragrant aroma drifting from the kitchen at his back－provided a gentle ebb and flow of background noise necessary for completing his assignments in relative peace. There wasn’t a better place－unless he was at home－for sketching out dissertations or jotting down notes for his theorems over a bowl of chowder and hot tea, but today he was too distracted watching his best friend try－and nearly succeed－in killing herself.</p><p><em>Again</em>.</p><p>“Not the foundry. Adora, not the foundry!” he hissed into his hand, watching in horror as Adora aimed herself toward the East End Foundry after plummeting at impossible speed back to earth…<em>headfirst </em>(the video feed alone almost made Bow vomit from second-hand vertigo)<em>. </em>He still hadn’t worked out how she managed to right herself from a fall that fast. The calculations were exact as they always were. The velocity should have snapped her spine. It hadn’t…but that didn’t mean Adora wasn’t going to die eventually from her antics.</p><p>His hands pulled at his face, nails digging into the skin and yanking his lower eyelids down. “What are you <em>doing</em>? Why are you <em>like this?” </em>he whined, hardly able to keep watching but doing so out of perverse curiosity and worry. “Please, please please…” Bow saw the digger head loom into view like the great head of a mechanical beast looking up from its watering hole and almost threw his tablet out of frustrated agitation, “<em>Don’t you dare you absolute</em>－”</p><p>“Dr. Delbert got you running quantum calculations again?”</p><p>Mara Hawkins had the unnerving ability to slide up to a table without anyone noticing. She was a ghost. A phantom. A wraith, depending on who you talked to. Her stealth was beyond unnerving－and Bow was an Eternian Astronomer and Theoretical grav-Physicist－but today it was practically terrifying on account Bow was trying to keep Adora’s alibi in play. She was supposed to be with her probation officer. An “early appointment”.</p><p>“Yep!” he yelped in reflex, slapping the holo-Pad face-down when Mara reached over to grab his partially empty glass. “It’s…uh…been a pretty tough semester. He’s having us calculate theorems based on crash trajectories and black hole grav-cycles. I’m…not having a good time with the equations. The videos are intense.”</p><p>Bow’s laugh was forced and just a smidge too high, but the hysteria was plausible for someone less than three credits and one complete thesis away from his Doctorate. Hysteria was normal ergo his cover was airtight…hopefully. If this all fell apart he could claim temporary insanity due to his class load, which was, no pun intended, astronomically high.</p><p>“I can see that,” Mara chuckled in that warm, mothering way she always spoke to him when his stress level got his voice squeaking. “If you stare any harder at that holo-Pad you’re going to burn a hole through it or go cross-eyed. Your cuticles could use a break too.”</p><p>Bow glanced down at his thumb and screwed his face up at the small ring of blood pooling against his chewed cuticle. Muttering under his breath, he popped the digit into his mouth to suck away the irony liquid before applying a napkin.  </p><p>“Don’t go vampire on me, now. Your order’s almost up,” Mara said, patting him sympathetically on the shoulder. “Growing genius’ need their dinner.”</p><p>“Thanks, Miss Hawkins.”</p><p>“No problem.” Three steps from the table, Mara did a perfect 180 back around, face opening with a question Bow already dreaded answering. “By chance, have you heard－”</p><p>“Miss. Hawkins!” a customer sing-songed across the dining room, wiggling her empty glass above her head in a very ‘this is empty, do something about it’ manner. Bow scowled at the rude gesture, but Mara appeared unphased.</p><p>“I’ll be right there, Mrs. Dunwhity!” she called, smile brilliant despite the exhaustion knitting bags under her eyes. “Sorry, Bow. Have you heard from Adora yet? Her meeting was almost two hours ago, and I’m getting a little worried.”</p><p>“Nope, nothing yet,” he swallowed the lie, keeping his face neutral and his hands from fidgeting. “You know how Officer Jester can be. They’re probably going over community service programs again and making sure she’s got all her ducks in order, so to speak.”</p><p>Bow meant to be uplifting but sensed his well-meaning comment struck a nerve when some of the light left Mara’s eyes, her hand going instinctively to a locket hanging just below the hollow of her throat. It was an all too common gesture she only did when her heart was hurting, and Bow felt his stomach drop.</p><p>Without another word, Mara moved off to do a sweep of drink refills before heading into the kitchen where Gran Razz and their skeleton crew of automatons－Adora had named nearly all of them which Bow found unnerving－were bringing out the next round of dinner entrees.</p><p>Bow breathed a collective sigh of relief and turned his attention back to his holo-Pad, but the screen was frozen at the exact moment Adora stuck her landing on the other side of the digger, which meant the feed had stopped. All the better, he supposed. Aside from protecting Adora’s alibi, Bow actually <em>did</em> have important work to get done and redirected his attention, scribbling notes as he thumbed through a sizable textbook at his elbow. When Mara sidled up to his table a few minutes later, her congenial mask was expertly back in place almost like it never slipped.   </p><p>“Parthean chowder with extra comb seed,” she announced, crisply setting the plate before him. “I had Razz add a few extra croutons because you’re my favorite.”</p><p>“Thanks, Miss Hawkins.” He breathed in the aromatic steam and sighed with content, shoulders loosening a fraction. “Give my love to Gran. Her chowder is legendary.”</p><p>“I will. Still no word?” Mara asked, unconsciously winding the edge of her apron around her fingers. Adora got that trait from her mother, Bow realized. And her mischief from Gran…much to everyone’s chagrin.</p><p>“Nope, not yet.” It was becoming increasingly hard keeping his own worry from peeking through. Adora should have been back by now. The solar-rig would have had plenty of juice for a return trip, and if she was at the foundry the trip was even shorter. “I wouldn’t worry. I’m sure she just got caught－”</p><p>Whatever heartfelt excuse Bow was formulating on his lips died the instant the door snapped open with a resounding bang revealing two robo-officers flanking a mortified Adora.</p><p>“Miss. Hawkins!” they called in unison as if their entrance wasn’t enough to win them an award for melodrama.</p><p>“Adora Rizzo Hawkins!” Mara yelped－dropping the plates in her hands－and if every head hadn’t pivoted toward the door they certainly had now.</p><p>Bow, understandably, wanted nothing more than to slide through the cracks in the floor and slither home. Oh, this was bad. This was very, very bad.</p><p>“Ho-kay!” Adora announced with a brittle laugh as though this was merely a jaunty trip home with friends rather than a police escort. “Thanks for the lift and towing my board back home, but I think I’ve got it－”</p><p>“Mara Rizzo Hawkins,” one of the officers addressed Mara directly, his robotic hand keeping Adora in place. “We apprehended your daughter operating an unlicensed, unregulated solar-rig in a restricted area. As par her probation, we are turning her over to you with instructions to appear in court two weeks from the offense date for sentencing.”</p><p>Bow went about as pale as Mara and her daughter, which was saying something for the latter of the two. Oh no. Oh no, no, no--</p><p>“<em>Sentencing?” </em>Mara and Adora both squeaked, hardly able to get the word out. From somewhere in the back of the restaurant, the kitchen door creaked open, Gran Razz poking her head out.   </p><p>“Wait a minute,” Adora tried and failed to round on the officer, “you said－”</p><p>“Surely, that’s a bit harsh for trespassing even with a record－”</p><p>“Um, officers? Might I…ah…interject here?” Bow didn’t have the first damn clue what he was doing, but instinct drove him to cross the dining room full of watching eyes, chief among them the sting of hurt understanding coming from Mara Hawkins.</p><p>“So sorry,” he began, pressing his sweating palms together while keeping his nervous smile bright. “I think there might have been a slight misunderstanding here. You see, Adora has been working with my department at Mystacor Aeronautics and Engineering on a prototype for grav-rigs sanctioned under Doctor Doppler. We’re making headway on revamping space travel and our dependence on singular grav-rigs on ships. Perhaps you’ve heard of the program?”</p><p>As cold as the metal making up their bodies and silent as the grave, Bow felt the officers stare him down and swallowed thickly.</p><p>“Perhaps not. Either way, I apologize, but Adora wasn’t driving an illegal--”</p><p>“Are you admitting to being a willing accomplice to illegal activity?”</p><p>Bow felt the earth shift under him and froze, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “N-no, not at all. I’m merely stating--”</p><p>One of the officers leaned in close, the smell of his coolant oil particularly strong. “Would you <em>like</em> to be counted as an accomplice?” </p><p>“That is not necessary,” Mara scowled, putting herself physically between Bow and the officer with a look that could turn steel to rust in seconds. “I believe you’ve made your point. Is there anything else I can do for you?”</p><p>The bending officer straightened, readjusting his hat despite it not having moved an inch. “If you wish to appeal this ruling you will have to submit formal papers to the Judiciary Council by no later than Monday evening. As for the time being, your daughter’s vehicle has been impounded.”</p><p>From the chest of the other officer, a piece of paper unscrolled and was handed to Mara who took it with barely stable hands.</p><p>“This is the fine and ticket amount. Please speak to the Treasury Department for payment assistance if it is necessary.” Summons issued and ticket given, the officers retracted themselves and left, closing the door smartly behind them as they went.</p><p>For a handful of seconds, the Inn had the atmosphere of a black hole vacuum. No one moved. No one dared speak until Mara twisted at the waist to glare at the dining hall. Spell broken, dozens of eyes returned to their plates, the scrape of utensils against cheap china and muttered conversation rushing back in to fill the void.</p><p>“Kitchen. Both of you. Now,” Mara snarled, barely able to look at either of them. In a single file, the three trudged into the kitchen where Gran Razz waited, seated on a stool peeling potatoes like she hadn’t watched everything happen just moments ago. She raised her eyes at them but didn't stop, the scrap of the peeler as rhythmic as a clock hand.</p><p>“Tend to the guests,” Mara instructed one of the automatons working the stove. Wordlessly, the bot rolled out of the kitchen, leaving only those made of flesh and blood behind.</p><p>“Mama…” Adora tried to find her words but felt as stuck as Bow, floundering in her guilt and shame. She tried several stances but couldn't find one that fit and wound up shoving her hands into her armpits. “I know this looks bad, but I didn’t mean for--”</p><p>“I’m done.”</p><p>Bow watched Adora freeze and felt his own heart clench. He didn’t want to be here, but the officer had been right, in a way. He was an accomplice.</p><p>Mara let the sentence hang like a guillotine, hands rubbing her face in an effort to keep the moisture brimming in her eyes from falling.</p><p>“I’m done,” she repeated, a little louder this time. “I can’t keep doing this, Adora. I can't keep paying for your mistakes. Literally." Mara shook the ticket for emphasis.</p><p>"I'll pay the fine," Adora reasoned quickly. "I'll pay for everything."</p><p>"What what money?" Marah threw back at her, spinning around to look for something that was obviously not there. "Are you participating in perry crimes now? Should I expect to see wanted posters of you next?"</p><p>Adora screwed up her face. "I can sell my scrap. I've got enough squirreled away, I can--"</p><p>"That's not the only issue here! I can't keep wondering day and night whether or not you are purposefully risking your life and freedom all for the chance at chasing a cheap thrill!"</p><p>Bow flinched, folding his arms across his chest, but if he felt the sting, Adora was feeling the full force of the slap.</p><p>“I’m not－” she clutched at the front of her red jacket like it had the power to keep her heart in place. “This isn’t for cheap thrills! I’m doing valid research on an actual problem with our sailing rigs! And it worked. Mama, it worked. The grav-pucks and the calculations I made to the rig itself worked! We don’t have to keep depending on an outdated system when this will--”</p><p>“You aren’t a scientist!” Mara almost exploded but just managed to keep her lid on. “You are one step away from spending the best and most important years of your life behind bars all because you can’t seem to swallow the fact you’re playing at something you’re not! You think you’ll be able to take any of these ‘findings’ to a higher council and have them take you seriously? Or are you using Bow for that, or is he just your convenient cover for when you blatantly lie to me?”</p><p>Bow sunk into himself, feeling he could go no lower.</p><p>“They’ll listen when they have cold hard evidence staring them in the face!”</p><p>“No, they’ll <em>laugh </em>in your face because all they’ll see is your record. No matter how much you want to change who and what you are, Adora Rizzo Hawkins, you have smeared your name and ruined any chance at crafting a future for yourself all because you can’t stop chasing dreams!”</p><p>“Yeah, and what future is that?” Adora thundered back, hurt and angry. “Stuck on some backwater planet bussing tables? Or working in a foundry? Or maybe getting lucky and getting an internship as a welder in a shipyard? That’s all I’m good for, right? Because of my namesake. Because of where and who I was born to. Or maybe I should just take a walk down the street to the Red Lights and lie on my back!”  </p><p>“So you’d rather spend your life behind bars? Is that it? Prison looks better than honest work that makes you livable money?”</p><p>“Explain to me how I’m not already living in a prison?”</p><p>Bow and Gran both flinched for different reasons. Adora, eyes glassy and nose red from unshed tears, pushed past them and stormed out the back door, letting it slam shut behind her.</p><p>Just like when the officers left, the kitchen was a black hole devoid of sound and air but abundant in crushing pressure. It bore down on all of them but none more than Mara who shook ever so slightly from her slouch against the warm stove, knuckle shoved into her mouth to keep the hiccups locked in her chest.</p><p>“Miss Hawkins…I didn’t mean for this…” Bow trailed off, his words losing traction the moment they left his tongue. What could he say? What apologies would suffice? "Adora's right. Her calculations worked. She's done what my professors couldn't in half the time. She's brilliant and wasted out here. I just...I wanted to help her that's all." </p><p>“I’m going to call you a tram,” Mara said without looking up, voice raw. “Your fathers are probably wondering where you are.”</p><p>Bow deflated against the counter, letting the cold metal prop him up. “I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t mean anything right now, but I am sorry. We didn’t…mean for this to happen.”</p><p>When Mara finally looked up, he could have sworn for a split second the honey brown of her eyes had taken on a blue hue. But it could have been just a trick of the overhead fluorescence.</p><p>“I’m sorry too. I expected better from you.”</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Bones</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rain was moving in, turning the sky a turbulent gunmetal gray that reminded Adora of the ramshackle docks at the far North edge of the Inn. Thunder growled in the heavy clouds, hinting at the storm to come, but she paid it the same attention she would a barking dog behind a fence.</p><p>A little rain and lightning couldn’t match the tempest raging inside her chest, dragging salty water from her eyes each time she blinked.</p><p>Today had been a gamble she thought she’d won. Her calculations were perfect. Her experiment went off without a hitch. In one afternoon, she solved long-distance sailing’s most pronounced defect with a solar-rig built from scrap and ‘allegedly’ stolen parts, but in the same breath, it all came crashing down.</p><p><em>“They’ll </em> <em>laugh in your face because all they’ll see is your record.”</em></p><p>Was that all her mother saw? When she looked at Adora, was there even a person there anymore or just the ghost of a girl who could never live up to the expectations placed on her young shoulders? The perpetual fuck-up who was nothing more than a criminal record and a waste of time.</p><p>She wanted to shake her mother as much as she wanted to fold into her arms and scream her rage and pain into the only safe space she used to have. Didn’t she get it? Couldn’t she understand? The world didn’t fit into Adora’s mold…or Adora didn’t fit into it. Each time she tried to hammer herself into place it left bruises that were slow to heal and scars that lasted years.</p><p>And with each failed attempt she got a new nickname.</p><p>Trouble maker. Delinquent. Loser. Fuck-up.</p><p>Of course, the voice in her head called her worse things by comparison, but those were the words seared into the back of her eyelids. They haunted her each night before bed and dogged her heels daily, stooping her spine and drawing her deeper and deeper into the centrifugal spin of crushing failure each time something blew up in her face.</p><p>Someday she would be good enough to be taken seriously.</p><p>“You shouldn’t be so hard on her,” Adora heard Gran say through the open window beside her, the older woman’s voice gentle but tinged with concern. Seated on the slope of the Inn’s peaked roof, Adora was in the perfect position to sulk without notice and eavesdrop without fear.</p><p>“I would hardly label what I am as being ‘hard,” she heard her mother mutter and felt her mood darken further.  </p><p>“You’re not listening to her.”</p><p>“<em>She’s </em>not listening to me, and look where it got her! Two weeks from now we’ll be going before a judge for sentencing. <em>Sentencing</em>, mom!” Adora heard a pot clatter into a drying rack and flinched, curling forward so she could rest her chin atop her knees. “My daughter is probably going to jail or put under house arrest at the very least, and I seem to be the only one grasping the scope of how awful this will be for her. She’s <em>nineteen</em>. Her record is public knowledge now, which means her chance of finding anything substantial away from the Inn has been slashed in half, and I’m just…I’m so <em>angry </em>with her, but I’m also so scared <em>for </em>her.”</p><p>More shuffling and what sounded like a stool being pulled across the tiled floor and someone sitting roughly onto it with a deflated sigh.</p><p>“I don’t even know anymore. And what’s so frustrating is that she’s…she’s so brilliant,” Mara hiccuped through a watery smile that nearly broke her daughter’s heart. “You and I were there when she built her first solar-rig when she was eight! Most of her class hadn’t even mastered gripping their screwdrivers but there my daughter was zooming around the playground.”</p><p>Adora could tell her mother was looking at her locket. Her tone always took on a wistful quality when the hologram inside the small piece of jewelry began to play.</p><p>“My little spacer. She used to be so excited to show me her inventions and designs. Where did my little girl go? The one with the sun in her smile and the moon in her eyes?”  </p><p>“Do you want a lie or a real answer?” Gran sniffed, and Adora was thankful for her aloof dismissiveness because she couldn’t rub the tears away fast enough.</p><p>“Mom,” Mara admonished, but Gran pressed further.</p><p>“You asked a valid question, and I have two answers available. Pick one.”</p><p>“The truth would be great,” Mara’s tone was as sharp as her smile was sure to be.</p><p>“Adora stopped trusting you with her heart the moment you equated her worth to what she could bring to the table and not what she could do for herself.”</p><p>Stunned into petrification, Adora felt the clamp around her heart squeeze just tight enough to wrangle a gasp from between her lips. And if she was dazed, Mara was going into a full-blown tailspin.</p><p>“I－I never－how could you even think－”</p><p>“All Adora wants is to chart her own course and be her own person. And she’s doing that right before your eyes, and you’re missing it.”</p><p>“Not at the expense of going to jail! Or at the expense of her life! There are places where she could experiment to her heart's content and stake her claim, but she refuses to go to them! She’s got it hardwired into her head to go at this on her own, and I can’t fathom why she won’t see sense.”</p><p>“You know exactly why she’s like this.”</p><p>Risking detection, Adora leaned around the window frame and caught a glimpse of Gran Razz leaning over a counter braiding the crust of a pie in front of her. The way she said that last sentence prickled something deep in Adora’s psyche, making the hairs along her entire body stand on end.</p><p>“We’re not talking about this, Mom,” Mara said, turning away and resuming her sudsy attack on the very clean pot in her arms.</p><p>“Mara dear, you can’t keep running from this. It’s as much Adora’s heritage as it’s yours, and you blatantly denying and in turn denying who Adora is it is what’s causing this rift.”</p><p>Adora’s heart began to climb into her throat, screaming like a terrified hummingbird behind the cage of her skin. Her what?</p><p>“This rift is because my daughter won’t stop for more than ten seconds and think about her future!” Mara raged, throwing the sponge in her hand into the sink with a sizable splash. “I want so much for her. I want her to do what I never could. I want to see the stars in her eyes, but she’s so…so…dead set on blundering through life when we’ve cut her such a clear path. We sacrificed so much getting here. Why does she have to take after me?”</p><p>Gran chuckled, but it was more of a sound meant to fill space than to set a mind at ease. “Yes, you’re certainly one to talk. Life isn’t about following predetermined paths, as you well know. It’s about finding your horizon and charting a course, sticking to it no matter the squalls. It’s about blundering through the jungle with only an ion-blade in hand, hacking away until you find <em>your</em> idea of normal. Adora is her own person. She’s not you or me, and expecting her to be anything but herself is doing a disservice to the both of you. It’s hurting both of you. It’s hurting my family, and so is keeping her heritage from her.”   </p><p>“She’s not ready for that kind of respons－”</p><p>Whatever else Mara was about to say was cut off by a sputtering bang that could only be a fuselage backfiring. It was loud enough, Adora thought a cannon had gone off next to her head, the windows around her rattling in their frames. Twisting in place, she watched a three-prong sloop careen past the Benbow and slam directly into their aging docks with enough force to shake the crumbling foundation and break one of the three spines off the round vessel. The ship sputtered two more times before dying, smoke billowing from cracks in the outer hull.</p><p>Sliding to the edge of the roof without a second’s hesitation, Adora lept into open air and hit the ground running, arms pumping in her effort to reach the dock before disaster happened and either the ship exploded or the dock gave way to the cliff below. Sloops didn’t just fall out of the sky, and judging by the amount of white smoke belching from its twin engines, disaster wasn’t far off.</p><p>“Hello! Anyone in there?” She took to pounding her fist against the four-inch-thick hatch-glass, the plex absorbing the impact as it was designed to do. Acrid black smoke could be seen curling and boiling inside, the noxious smell of coolant and propulsion fuel filling her nose as it leaked around her feet and slipped over the side of the dock. “Hey, can anyone hear me－”</p><p>Adora jumped back with a startled cry when a clawed hand scraped across the glass, smearing greasy green blood in the process. Her first instinct was to dive for the outer lever and attempt to wrench open the hatch, but a seconds later it opened with a grinding hiss and out tumbled one of the grizzliest Turtarians Adora had ever seen. Stooped and heaving, the old creature sagged under the weight of his shell and the stinking overcoat that wrapped him like the arms of a vagabond. Slimy yellow eyes stared out at her from a flat face, its beak capped with equally sharp teeth.</p><p>“Holy shit, are you－”</p><p>“Quadrant!” he demanded, crouched and glaring at Adora with such naked hostility she was afraid he might pull a sword. “Where am I?”</p><p>“HQ 6…” Adora supplied, eyeing him cautiously.</p><p>“Not far. Not far enough. Couldn’t get through the hyperjump. Damn…fucking damn!”</p><p>“Sir, if you need help I’d be more than－”</p><p>“No helping me, lass. He’s ah coming,” the old turtle wheezed breathlessly, snatching the front of Adroa’s jacked before she could backpedal and using her strong body as leverage to pull himself up. If he was ugly from afar he was downright putrid up close with a smell to match. “Do yah hear ‘em? Those gears and gyros clicking and whirling like the devil himself! Walks in the shadows, he does. Walks with a devil! Ain’t nowhere on any planet you can hide from ‘im!”</p><p>Attempting to keep her gag reflexes in check, Adora steeled herself and steadied the creature as best she could as he tottered drunkenly. “You, ah, must have hit your head pretty hard in the crash,” she forced out, carefully but firmly extracting herself from his grip. “I’d like to help you.”</p><p>“He’s after me chest,” the old turtle hissed through bloody teeth－completely ignoring Adora－eyes wide and crazed as he attempted with marginal success to hobbled back to a small trunk half-forgotten by the open hatch. “I found it! Me! My life’s work, an he wants it for his own! But that mechanized son of a bitch will have to pry it from Billy Bone’s cold, dead fingers before I so much as－”</p><p>Whatever else Bones was about to say sputtered and died in a series of bloody coughs that took the old turtle to his knees and then the wharf when he could no longer keep himself upright.</p><p>“Shit!” Adora darted forward and caught the Turtarian’s arm before he could crash completely to the ground. He was a heavy son of a bitch－weighing easily three times what she did on a good day－but she planted her feet and dug deep, helping Bones rise onto unsteady legs so he didn’t run the risk of drowning in his own fluids. It was only once he was standing with her assistance that Adora discovered the crash hadn’t done near as much damage as a cutlass had to his back and underbelly.</p><p>The creature was in ribbons, blood soaking into his dark clothing and into her clothes by proxy.</p><p>Shit.</p><p>“Thanks, lass,” he muttered, attempting and failing to wipe the blood from his chin. “Thank the skies for kind eyes.”</p><p>“Don’t thank me yet. Inn’s fifty yards away up a hill, and I’m gonna need you to use those legs of yours,” she said through a snarling grunt, bearing most of Bone’s weight as the two began their shuffling journey back home. But slow going didn’t describe the half of it, and it didn’t help matters at all that barely ten yards in the sky opened and attempted to drown them out of pure malicious glee.</p><p>Hair a helmet plastered against her scalp as water dribbled down the planes of her face, Adora took it one step at a time, mud squelching threateningly beneath her boots. All it would take was one wrong foothold and they would both be ass over tea kettle back down the slope. Her mother owned a ramshackle Inn at the top of a hill that dropped off into a three hundred foot gully. Astroterf wasn’t in the budget, and aesthetics weren’t the Inn’s bread and butter. Those prissy buildings were closer to the shipping ports. Their inn was a quick and dirty service station and it showed.</p><p>By the time they reached the honey glow of the shuttered windows, the old turtle was barely conscious and held solely aloft by Adora’s strength alone. She could hear her mother and Gran speaking within－probably still arguing－and used the last of her reserve strength to flick the handle down and kick the door open. It was only happenstance a bolt of lightning accompanied her dramatic entrance, lending flare where it wasn’t needed.</p><p>Her mother screamed at the sight of them. Gran swore and swung her broom around like it was suddenly a club. Adora shouted over them both to call a medic as her own knees gave out and she and Bones hit the floor. The manhandling, the shouting, or a combination of the both must have roused the old turtle because his eyes cracked open and leveled on Adora with frightening intensity.</p><p>“Me chest, lass,” Bones rattled in his crumple on the floor, trembling hands reaching for what he couldn’t get for himself. Adora－having dragged the trunk along behind them－swung it around and watched with wrapped attention as he dialed in a code.</p><p>“He’ll be coming soon. Barely…got the drop on ‘im. Can’t let ‘im find this!”</p><p>Adora expected weapons or ammunition or even some goddamn gold with how covetously Bones clutched the object to his chest, but it was just…junk. Round junk wrapped in burlap and twine. Beyond the circle of her confusion, Gran Razz and her mother shared similar looks of alarmed bewilderment.</p><p>“Who’s coming?” she heard herself ask, speaking into existence the question they were all thinking.</p><p>Bones waved Adora close and then grabbed her shirt collar, forcing her to her hands and knees. “The <em>cyborg</em>,” he gurgled into her ear, his breath rotten with the stench of blood and smoke. “Beware the…cyborg and the devil on his leash.”</p><p>It was too much. The crash compounded with his previous injuries and the trip to the Inn dragged the last shreds of life from the creature. Slowly, Bones faded, the light leaving his yellow eyes as his body dropped back to earth but not without leaving behind the object of his obsession in Adora’s trembling hands.</p><p>“Oh…oh my god,” she heard her mother exhale and felt her move around the dead body in the middle of the entranceway when the dining room suddenly lit up like a second sun.</p><p>High above the domed ceiling where a black sky was alive with cracks of blue lightning, a dark shape cut through the searchlight. It made two sweeping passes, each a little lower, like a shark circling a bloody meal, before flying close enough to the Inn Adora and her family could feel the shudder of the engines in their bones.</p><p>It took one shared, terrified look for them all to realize the Turtarian hadn’t run nearly as far or as fast as he would have liked.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Lost to the Fire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Bit of a shorter chapter this time, guys, so I apologize for that. Real-life has me pretty bogged down and seasonal depression is kicking my ass, but I'm chugging along. If anyone wants to keep up with my She-Ra antics you can find me over on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Prop_nerd or on tumblr: https://not-so-secret-nerd.tumblr.com/ </p><p>Come by and bug me!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Boosters sizzled in the yard as they soaked the wet ground in tongues of fire. Steam curled around the jagged vessel, coiling fingers rising into a black, turbulent sky. Through the slit in the Inn’s electronic curtains, Adora caught the arcing swoop of spidery landing legs crack into the ground as the hulking beast of a ship came to a standstill not forty yards from their front door.</p><p>Lightning turned the yard into a monochromatic, stop-motion reel of activity as boiling masses lept over the side, rain and darkness obscuring their features but not their intent. Adora knew a mob when she saw one. There was no mistaking who and what these people were, and her body filled with a potent mix of terrorized adrenaline and crackling anticipation.</p><p>Fights she knew. Fights she could do, and if it was a fight they wanted it was a fight they’d get. That is, up until the lead shadow spearheading the group made a cocking gesture not lost to the storm.</p><p>
  <em>Oh fuck.</em>
</p><p>“Get to the sled out back!” Adora shouted, but the words were barely out of her mouth when the first thunderous concussion of a pulse cannon turned half of the door and much of the wall beside her into shrapnel. The blast blew them all down like wheat in a windstorm, dust and smoke choking the room as furniture and flooring caught fire simultaneously.</p><p>Adora groaned and rolled onto her stomach. Masonry and mortar covered most of her lower half, muting the vibrant red of her jacket into a pale pink. She tasted the familiar salty tang of blood but was climbing to her feet before her brain registered the movement. At no point had she told her body to move, yet here she was squaring up against unknowable odds with blood in the seams of her teeth and a growl deep in her throat.</p><p>“You…did not…just use a<em> pulse cannon </em>on my <em>fucking </em>door!” she raged, the blaze in her eyes hot enough to melt steel beams. Blindly, her hands groped for something she could use as a weapon and found it in the worn handle of a fire poker. But no sooner had her fingers curled around the makeshift weapon a set of hands grabbed her from behind and nearly took her off her feet.</p><p>“Absolutely <em>fucking</em> not,” Mara snarled, shocking her daughter into numb sedation. Her mother never swore. Ever. And she never grabbed Adora with the amount of strength currently turning her hand into a vice that was sure to leave finger-shaped bruises on her daughter’s bicep. Had her eyes always been that metallic? They almost looked blue in the light…</p><p>“Move, <em>move!</em>”</p><p>Twisting on her heels, Mara dragged Adora up the stairs to the second level, following the path Gran cut through the Inn. It took a few stuttering steps for Adora to catch on, but her strides evened and she sprinted alongside her mother. If they could reach the far window on the second floor they could climb down－virtually unseen and unheard－and run to the garage. The hover-sled wasn’t fast enough to outrun a clipper ship, but if they used the rain and the darkness to their advantage they could escape unnoticed.   </p><p>The stairs took a hard right onto a landing then opened to the second-floor hall. Sprinting at a reckless speed, Adora took the corner too fast and bounced off the wall in her haste. Her mother possessed more grace but remained one step behind, casting glances over her shoulder to be sure no one was following. Adora could see Gran already at the window in the office at the other end, frantically beckoning them with sharp gestures. In the dining room below, glass shattered and wood splintered. Shouts and cries from the oncoming mob drifted through the curling fingers of smoke rising through the floorboards. Commands were barked from a voice that sounded like it had been dragged over gravel. Responses growled back. Adora couldn’t make out what was being said, but it didn’t matter. They were almost to Gran, just passing her bedroom, when the world ended.</p><p>She felt the <em>whump</em> more than she heard it, the hollow cavity of her chest vibrating as something massive tore through the air. Light as bright as a second sun poured between the seams in the hallway’s wood paneling, giving Adora a split second to do the impossible and curl protectively around her mother before the ion-ball hit them.</p><p>For an absurd moment, all of creation dropped away. Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch...none of it found purchase in the world of pure white seeping in through Adora’s tightly shut eyes. The light was a physical presence assaulting her from all sides. It burned through the layers of her skin, turned her bones to sludge, broke apart her atoms one by one until she was a singular thought on the solar winds blowing through her existence.</p><p><em>Is this what it feels like to die?</em> she wondered in the idle place of the mind that separated itself from unfolding trauma.</p><p><strong><em><b>No, </b></em></strong>came a reply that shook Adora to her core. It came from everywhere and nowhere at the same absurd time, brushing against her consciousness like a shark curiously butting a diver. <strong><em><b>You are far from done.</b></em></strong></p><p><em>What the fu</em>－</p><p>The first sensation to return was the sense of falling. Suspended in open air, gravity reinstated itself and pulled Adora back to the earth from the hole in the second story wall she’d flown through. It was strange falling in slow motion. It was stranger still hitting the ground and feeling the sudden stop blast through bones that were sure to bend and break.</p><p><em>That’s it…I’m dead, </em>she thought laying prone in almost total darkness. She should have felt the rain or the wet stones beneath her, but the only thing Adora could sense was the presence of another close by.</p><p><strong><em><b>You’re not, </b></em></strong>the presence said, and it sounded both tired and amused.</p><p>
  <em>Where am I?</em>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em> <b>In grave danger, if you don’t get up.</b> </em> </strong>
</p><p>Up? She’d been bodily ejected through a solid wall on the second floor of her home. What up was there other than waking up and drowning in her own blood?</p><p><em>Who are you? </em>she tried to ask instead, afraid of returning to the present.</p><p>
  <strong> <em> <b>You.</b> </em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <em>What?</em>
</p><p><strong><em><b>Breathe and rise. You have a sled to catch, </b></em></strong>the voice commanded, and Adora’s lungs sprang to shuddering life.</p><p>Flat on her back, she wheezed and choked and trembled, all five senses returning in a muted mumble of incoherent activity. She could see but not well. She could feel but her body felt miles away. She could hear but only a persistent whine of a ruptured eardrum or two. She could smell and taste but only ash and blood, burned hair and the smoke of a dirty fire.</p><p>Convulsing, Adora became aware of a weight on her chest. Even during the fall, her arms never once loosened from their protective curl around her mother. Mara’s head rest against her chest, but unlike Adora, she didn’t stir. She breathed but shallowly, blood oozing from her nostrils and the hundreds of cuts and burns opening her skin.</p><p>It was the blood that drew Adora’s attention and held her heart in icy jaws of terror.</p><p>“Mama?” she croaked, rolling onto her side to get a better look. Mara’s head lolled, the glow of her tawny skin diminished to a yellow-gray pallor. “<em>Mama</em>?!”</p><p>Another explosion rocked the building, this one coming from the kitchen on the ground floor. The fire must have finally reached the gas stove. Dazed and terrified, Adora stared up at the corpse of the only home she’d known. Much of the second floor was gone, a gaping, oval-shaped wound cut into the wood where fire and smoke belched into the black sky, tinting it red.  </p><p>“Adora!” Gran’s terrified hiss cut through the roar of the flames and splintering kindling.</p><p>
  <strong> <em> <b>Get up and run!</b> </em> </strong>
</p><p>It never occurred to Adora to question the voice as she staggered to her feet with her mother limp in her arms. Or wonder how she survived an ion-ball to the back and was up and moving after a second-story fall. Adrenaline narrowed her focus, blessedly hiding the strange transformation that made her hands just a smidge too big and her mother weightless her arms.</p><p>Thankfully, she didn’t see the startled look of her grandmother or feel the burns running the length of her body knit themselves back together as she climbed into the waiting sled hovering just beside the garage. And she certainly didn’t see the blue beckons that had become her eyes. The same eyes that caught movement in her periphery as Gran hit the gas and sent them shooting into the thundering dark.</p><p>A figure, lithe and viciously lean, stood atop one of the roof’s sagging peaks, dirty orange and yellow flames raging at its back. In between bands of curling smoke and blowing rain, Adora could make out two distinct things that would forever be burned into her memory: the curl of horns and the opaque black-ion blade clutched in its hands.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The Map</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Oh my god, y'all. I struggle-bussed with this chapter SO MUCH. It did not want to be written, and I think I went through two or three rewrites until I got it where I needed. I'm so looking forward to writing something else for a while XD</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Bodies moved around her but Adora was a reef in a squall, pummeled by wave after wave that barely allowed her to keep her head above water. She saw without seeing and heard without hearing, staring blankly at the wood grain between her filthy boots as the activity churning around her remained at a steady peak. Every so many seconds, a droplet of water slipped from the soaked tips of her hair. Adora watched from miles away as the puddle grew, her mind working like a flashbulb, showing her snippets of the flight from the Benbow Inn to Bow’s home at the Sagittarius Estate.</p><p>Rain beating against her shoulders, stinging the exposed skin of her face as she hunched in the back of the sled, a frail and shockingly still body clutched to her chest.</p><p>Darkness swallowing everything but the sled’s headlights, making it seem as though they were driving into the maw of a monster rather than fleeing to safety.</p><p>The sound of praying. Not to any one god, of course. Those didn’t exist, but perhaps she was praying for the voice to return and tell her what came next. The words came unbidden and wouldn’t stop, a flood of tears mingling with the rainwater.</p><p>A hitch in her mother’s breathing as her body struggled to cling to life.</p><p>The feeling of warmth trickling between Adora’s fingers no matter how hard she clutched the wounds. She kept her ear next to her mother’s lips, dreading the moment she wouldn’t feel the shallow breath tickle the fine hairs of her face.</p><p>The glittering lights of the Sagittarius Estate rising like a garish ornament at the edge of a black horizon.</p><p>Hands and voices. Shouts for medics and the gut-wrenching feeling of her mother being pulled from her arms. No, they couldn’t take her! She wasn’t safe! Just a little more time!</p><p>And then Bow’s face inches from hers, quieting her cries, holding her back and asking over and over what happened. Which was a good question she didn’t have an answer for. What <em>had </em>happened? Adora’s molasses mind churned slowly, weighed down by shock and trauma. She couldn’t get her words out－vomit scorching her throat－before the world pitched dangerously to one side and went dark.</p><p><strong><em><b>Breathe. The fight is not over</b></em></strong>, came the voice one final time.</p><p>When Adora came to she wasn’t lying on a bed or sprawled on the floor. Instead, she was seated on a stiff bench in a hallway that looked more at home in a palace, hunched over with her elbows planted on her knees. Her eyes burned from their prolonged stare that ended in a series of stuttering blinks. When focus reestablished itself she was looking at the dried blood highlighting the creases of her hands. Was it hers or her mother’s? The thought churned her stomach anew.</p><p>“Adora?”</p><p>She startled at the sound of Bow’s voice and jerked back, pulling abruptly away from the gentle hand on her shoulder. The world swirled with the noxious consistency of oil and water. Bow crouched at her knee to help guide her struggling vision, one hand on the bench and the other holding something steaming.</p><p>“Hey, welcome back. Here,” he said, taking a seat and closing her hands around a warm ceramic mug. Adora couldn’t stand the idea of eating or drinking, but the warmth was a welcome grounding rid, locking her in the present where the riptide wasn’t as strong.</p><p>“Thanks,” she managed, voice like a handful of clacking rocks.</p><p>“I also brought these.”</p><p>Adora felt more than saw the blanket being flung over her shoulders－warmed by either a fire or a dryer－and glanced at the shirt laid across her lap. That’s right…she didn’t have much of a shirt or jacket left after the ion-ball took most of the fabric and her skin with it. Skin that, unlike her mother, was wound free and healthy.</p><p> “Thanks,” she mumbled again, jerkily turning around to remove her old shirt in lieu of the new one. The blanket was a needed balm around her shoulders until the door across the hall opened and a nurse darted out. She clutched a bundle of bloody rags to her chest, and Adora’s heart crashed through the floor.</p><p>“Dad’s in there now,” Bow said, catching her before she could fully rise and slip through the crack in the door. “She’s in the best hands possible. Come sit back down.”</p><p>Adora wanted to do nothing of the sort, but her legs betrayed her and buckle. She blinked hard to clear her watery vision and coughed, rubbing the gathering moisture away with the heel of her palm.</p><p>“I’m sorry. I didn't mean to burden your family like this, but I didn’t know where else to go. You were the only－”</p><p>“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Bow soothed, knocking her gently with his shoulder. “I’m glad you thought to come here. I don’t know what I would have done had I found out second or third hand that you two were in the hospital or worse.”</p><p>Adora managed a weak nod but could sense her friend’s unspoken inquiry about the how and why the Hawkins family landed bloody and singed on the steps of his home, but she couldn’t bring herself to coagulate the words into coherent sentences. Speaking it aloud would make it corporeal, and as juvenile as it seemed, if Adora refused to let the attack become real her mother’s life wouldn’t be hanging in the balance.</p><p>“Come on,” Bow nudged her again after a handful of seconds, taking her silence as a sign and not pushing further. “The study has more comfortable chairs.”</p><p>“I'd rather－”</p><p>“Dad’s going to be a while, and you look like you’re about to drop.”</p><p>“Where’s my grandmother?” A nod down the long hall gave Adora her answer and signed her resignation.    </p><p>She knew the way to the study by heart having grown up in these halls－so Adora surmised the tightness of Bow’s hand had more to do with keeping her from bolting than guidance－but the journey felt oddly wrong-footed. Almost like a part of herself was seeing the estate for the first time. Was it her imagination or did she keep catching the reflection of another in the mirrors they passed? Someone with eyes like cold fire?</p><p>Of course, whenever she looked again it was just her, but she couldn’t always be sure.</p><p>True to form, the furniture in the study was softer, as was the decor. The whites, golds, and royal colors were traded for soft blues and warm woods, plush carpets, and ample seating. A large fireplace dominated the back wall, already lit and throwing shifting shadows across the round room. Enormous windows flanked by equally large bookshelves were electronically shuddered against the storm still squalling outside, suspending the room in silent tranquility. Somewhere above－lost in the high arches of a domed ceiling－was a series of gangplanks and catwalks crisscrossing beneath a massive telescope. Bow’s other father was a decorated astrographer. His keen eyes were responsible for most of the merchant trade routes and maps in the region.</p><p>Adora didn’t have to look hard for her grandmother when the doors whispered shut behind her. Seated in a large wing back chair beside the fire, she was a tiny, frail figure adrift in a sea of firelight and shadows. The same sea Adora was drowning in. When she heard the doors close, Gran Razz looked up, her gray eyes bloodshot and tired behind her thick glasses, but the exhaustion vanished the moment she saw her grandchild.</p><p>“Oh, Rizz,” she stammered tearfully, using a childhood nickname Adora hadn’t heard in years. The effect left the younger woman weak-kneed and barely able to make it to the chair before collapsing at her grandmother’s feet and blindly groping for anything stable enough to keep her from slipping under. Razz caught and held her close, bending over Adora as she clutched her skirts and let the emotions back building in her soul break free.</p><p>“I’m so sorry,” Adora hissed over and over again, shaking like a tree in a windstorm.</p><p>“Don’t you dare apologize. You’re the only reason we’re still alive.”</p><p>“I’m the reason we almost died. I’m always the reason something’s happening in our family,” she sobbed through the rock-hard clench of her jaw.</p><p>“Adora,” her grandmother said with the patience of a woman who reared two willful women, pushing her back so she could better look into the face her wizened hands cupped. “You and I both know that’s not the case.”</p><p>“I brought him in. They shot at us because of <em>me</em>. Mama’s hurt because of <em>me</em>.”</p><p>“You thought you were saving a life,” Gran soothed, thumbing away her tears. “You didn’t know any of this would happen.”</p><p>Which was the truth but not a truth Adora wanted to hear.</p><p>The sound of the study door suddenly creaking open had both women startling. George Sagittarius emerged from the hall－hair damp from the rain and expression harried－and almost sprinted the distance between them. Before Adora could make so much as a sound of greeting, strong arms pulled both women into a crushing embrace.</p><p>“I’m so sorry. I came as fast as I could from the university. Razz, what on earth happened? There are reports of an explosion and a fire in your quadrant. Was that the Benbow?” A nod of confirmation was all the old woman gave him. “What <em>happened</em>?”</p><p>“I didn’t see them,” Gran admitted, helping Adora find her feet and follow George to the nearest sofa. “Adora and Mara did.”</p><p>“See who?”</p><p>Overwhelmed and exhausted, Adora let herself be lowered onto the plush cushions, Bow and his father taking one side while Gran took the other. “Pirates,” she blew out, dragging her arm across her upper lip to clear it of mucous. Her eyes easily found the hungry flames in the fireplace and stayed there. It wasn’t hard conjuring the images of the Benbow or the horned figure watching them flee into the darkness. They would haunt her nightmares for years to come.</p><p>“Are you serious?” Bow squeaked, brown eyes as big as dinner plates.</p><p>“My dear, are you absolutely sure?”</p><p>Adora gave George a hard look. “If they weren’t, whoever they were had enough firepower to level the Benbow. It’s gone. All of its gone.” As quickly as the indignation flared it froze solid. Everything was gone. She had…nothing.</p><p>“How did pirates come to the Benbow?”</p><p>“A Turtarian crashed into our docks,” she said, numbly recounting the tale of the crash and the creature in the ship.</p><p>“Heavens,” George breathed when she was finished.</p><p>“Mama and I barely escaped. Gran saved us all by getting us into the sled.” <em>But we didn’t escape, </em>Adora thought darkly, curling her fingers into her palm. <em>They shot us with a weapon meant to sink air-Ships and only I walked away unscathed. </em>The unfairness was a noose around her neck. Out of everyone in her family, it should be her in that room, not her mother with how often she threw herself into unnecessarily dangerous situations.</p><p>Adora jerked out of her self-destructive spiral when a warm hand ghosted across her shoulder. Kind eyes the color of potter’s clay held her own, crow’s feet crinkling when George smiled. “Despite everything, I’m glad you three are still with us.“</p><p><em>There could be only two come morning, </em>Adora wanted to spit but kept her temper in check. George wasn’t the object of her rage. He didn’t deserve the venom she could easily throw at him.</p><p>“Thanks,” was what she said instead, starting at the floor.</p><p>“You don’t think there’s a chance they followed you?”</p><p>Bow’s question brought them all to a screeching stop. Adora felt her entire body go numb from the neck down as the blood pooled in her feet. She hadn’t even entertained the thought. Her sole focus had been getting her mother and grandmother to safety. Oh god….oh dear god no…</p><p>“I hardly think anyone was followed.” George’s reassurance was about as solid as a dam held together with tape and glue. “I didn’t see anyone in the skies or on the road when I arrived, and it’s been hours since the attack. They likely fled, though why they razed the Benbow without looting it is beyond me. Was the sailor you rescued carrying anything?”</p><p>All at once, Adora lunged out of her seat like she’d been stung. Bow and George called after her, but she didn’t go far. Bow had laid her burned and tattered jacket on one of the three desks. It took no time locating the metallic sphere in the deepest part of an inner pocket. Even in proper light, the trinket looked dull, the metal tarnished from years of handling, but this junky, woebegone piece of shit almost signed her family’s death warrant. Seeing it in the firelight filled Adora with a venomous kind of rage. The kind that made her want to throw objects and purge her system with a scream.</p><p><em>“ Can’t let him find this…”</em> she heard Bone’s panicked voice as her fingers curled around the sphere, knuckles popping white.</p><p>“Adora…” Bow hedged, watching the corded muscles of her shoulders bunch. “What is it?”</p><p>She turned in profile and held the ball up for the two men to see. “The Turtarian had this on him. He told me whoever was chasing him couldn’t get their hands on it. My mother might die tonight because of this fucking piece of scrap!”     </p><p>It was a good throw. The wind-up kind that would easily put any object through a wall. Adora certainly had the strength to pitch the sphere into the next quadrant, but it barely flew four feet before reversing mid-air and screaming back into her palm. The crack of metal against skin was as sharp as a slap in the stunned silence.</p><p>“<em>Merciful fucking Saints</em>!” Adora yelped, shaking her stinging hand in an effort to dislodge the sphere only to find it stuck tight to her skin. No amount of shaking or swear or pulling would dislodge it. She was preparing to employ the patented ‘smash object against the hardwood until it fell apart’ technique when she noticed a scribble of illuminated text on the side closest to her thumb. Adora thought she was hallucinating and dug the heel of her free palm into her eye, but the message was still there when she looked again.</p><p>
  <em>Push me</em>
</p><p>Out of viable options that didn't involve destroying most of the Sagittarius study, she mashed her thumb against the button－completely ignoring the part where this could be an incendiary device of the insidious variety－and waited for something to happen. Nothing went boom, thank god. There was no pop or fizzle or flash. The ball looked exactly the same except…one of the stripes crisscrossing the sphere in a geometric pattern started to glow. And above it was another command:</p><p>
  <em>Slide index finger here</em>
</p><p>“What the hell?” she muttered, thunder in her scowl.</p><p>“Adora?” Gran Razz called, her voice mirroring the worry of everyone else present. With no other choice but to oblige, Adora followed the prompt and set off a series of chain reactions more bazaar than the last.</p><p>
  <em>Twist here one turn</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Press buttons in a sequence of three</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Half rotation</em>
</p><p>With each prompt, Adora felt her murderous scowl lift into one of wonder. This was a puzzle sphere. An old one but hardly rudimentary. Had it not been for the written clues－and whatever kept the sphere glued to her palm－Adora would have never known.</p><p>In no time, she flew through the sequences until a final command of ‘<em>Rotate three hundred and sixty degrees</em>’ sizzled across the metal's smooth surface. Motion complete, the sphere clicked once－the only indication something new was about to happen－before the same sizzling light that appeared as guiding instructions flew arrow-straight into the ceiling and burst apart like a firework. All present shouted in startled alarm that quickly dissolved into gasping awe.</p><p>In a cascade of electric green energy, the whole of the study became a hive of fireflies a million thick. They swarmed like flocks of birds, undulating and twisting to a rhythm only they understood. To a curious onlooker, the flight pattern would have appeared totally random, but the look on George Sagittarius' face said otherwise.</p><p>“This is a boot program,” he breathed, eyes massive behind his glasses.</p><p>Sure enough, the pixel fireflies dispersed, clustering among one another until they amassed enough resolution to form floating shapes. One after another after another until the entire study was a three-dimensional holographic star map with flesh and blood humans at its core.</p><p>“Oh my stars,” George whistled, turning in place. Bow shared a similar expression of barely contained wonder, both men walking light-years in two or three strides as they took it all in.</p><p>“Hey! I think this is our planet,” Bow exclaimed excitedly, pointing to a random rotating planet beside Adora’s head.</p><p>“It is!” George confirmed. “That’s planet Bright Moon. Extraordinary! There’s Mystacore over in the third quadrant. I’ve never seen a star map like this. It’s almost like－”</p><p>Someone must have touched something－it was Adora, but she quickly shoved her offending hand into her pocket to hide the evidence－because the slowly rotating program lurched forward, dragging them through the galaxy like they were a dingy behind a frigate. Light-years were eaten away in seconds, all of space and time opening for them.  </p><p>“That’s…that’s the Plumerian Galaxy!” Bow bounced, gleeful in his recognition of the known universe, the floral-shaped galaxy drifting by on a lazy current. “And the Salineasian Belt! Planet Dryl! But these…these are all halfway across our galaxy. How on earth－”</p><p>A planet loomed ahead, drawn closer by the program and dwarfing every celestial body by proxy. Adora moved toward it, heart climbing into her throat. She would have known it anywhere. Any child growing up hearing even the smallest scraps of spacer lore would have recognized it immediately. Dual-belted and mechanized at to its core, Planet Etheria rose before them like a dark sun, green and pulsing.</p><p>She ignored the stats flashing above the planet in a language she didn’t recognize.   </p><p>She ignored the excited chatter beside her, her head filling instead with crackling white noise and one repeated sentence ringing between her ears: it was real.</p><p>Never mind the logistics and impossibility staring her square in the face. After a lifetime of secret believing and deep-rooted yearning, Adora felt the bright sun of hope ignite in her chest.</p><p>“Planet Etheria,” she whispered as if speaking the name aloud would shatter the spell. There it was. The light at the end of the tunnel for herself and her family. No more scraping by. No more counting pennies. No more having to watch her mother and grandmother work through their later years. Adora’s every want and need through life, regardless of what her mother thought, was to find a way to help her family make it big. Well, there wasn’t a bigger score in the universe than a planet holding the loot of a thousand worlds.</p><p>“<em>No way</em>,” Bow and George squeaked in unison, more astonished than incredulous.</p><p>“That’s Planet Etheria,” Bow broke away, gesturing wildly. “<em>That’s Planet Etheria!</em>”</p><p>“Hordak’s trove? It can’t be,” George frowned, circling the hovering planet, but even his steadfast resolve was flaking away like rust in the wind. “It can’t be. It’s a myth. We would have found it by now if…”</p><p>As if hitting a sudden reef, George pivoted around and squinted across the room where the rest of the map lay unfurled like a holographic carpet.</p><p>“It’s in the shadow of the Sarkesian Sun! That’s why we’ve never picked up any signatures of a planet this far out! Oh my stars, it’s genius! He hid it in plain sight!”</p><p>George and Bow kept talking, but Adora turned to face the only voice who mattered in this quickly unfolding drama. Her grandmother watched with wide, tearful eyes from the couch, Planet Etheria reflected in the lenses of her thick glasses. She didn’t notice Adora staring until a smaller planet drifted by, breaking her concentration.</p><p>Throat a knotted mess of anxiety that almost made it impossible to speak, Adora knelt at the older woman’s feet, hands fisting her skirt. “Gran, I…I know all of this sounds crazy, and I know I’m not really the one to－”</p><p>“Adora,” Gran cut in, closing her hands over her granddaughter’s. For a second, she feared reprimand, but the old woman’s smile bloomed slowly, dampened by a sadness they both felt in their souls. “I believe you enough to let you go.”</p><p>“What?” she startled, drawing back.</p><p>“I’m letting you go, dear. I know exactly what you’re going to ask and how much of a struggle it will be between your head and your heart, so I’m making the decision for you. Life happens for a reason, and today showed me you aren’t meant for the life your mother and I wanted. I’m ashamed I ever thought you could be anything other than yourself, and I apologize for trying to put you into a box that wasn’t yours to fit into.”</p><p>Adora felt the tears welling in her eyes slide down her face. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out but a pained wheeze, so Gran spoke for her, sliding her fingers through Adora’s golden hair, the gesture calming for the both of them.</p><p>“You, like your mother, were born to do such great things, so I’m doing to you what I should have done for Mara years ago. I’m letting you go.”</p><p>“I can’t just up and leave you and Mama. I don’t even know if she’s going to live through the night.”</p><p>“We’ll both be here when you return.”</p><p>“You can’t promise something like that.”</p><p>Gran chuckled, leaning down so her lips were pressed against the back of Adora’s head. “This world isn’t your mold, Rizz. You were born for the stars, and if she’s begun speaking to you, it’s time you saw those stars.”     </p><p>Fully startled, Adora jerked up and back and caught, for just a fleeting moment, a sizzle of blue energy light Gran's gray eyes from the back. It wasn’t a trick of the firelight. It wasn’t a hallucination, and just as quickly as it came it was gone, leaving Adora reeling.</p><p>“I wish I could explain it to you, but it's better to find out on your own. That’s the way of our people.”</p><p>Adora would have said more－in fact, she was preparing stand and demand answers－when the study door opened one final time and an exhausted Lance Sagittarius walked in. He took one look around the room still bathed in holographic programming and pushed a breath through his nose.</p><p>“Well, I’m glad to see everyone working on something important this evening. I have good and bad news, but I need to speak to Adora and Razz alone please.”</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. R.M.S. Eternia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Long chapter, guys! I was thinking about splitting it in half but was cautioned against it xD Lots happening, but we need to move the story along and finally get this ship launched! Happy reading!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Five days. Gone in a blink. Adora was cognoscente for most of it, but even she had trouble keeping up with the flurry of activity that befell the Sagittarius Estate. And thankfully, her input and participation wasn’t needed. Petty troublemakers with records didn’t book air-Ships for long voyages, and they didn’t have a hand in picking the crew. That usually came with the booking of the ship in question, so Adora let George and Bow take the helm. It left her time to spend with her mother.</p><p>Lance had been right. Good and bad news awaited. The good news was that Mara Hawkins would live. The bad news was no one knew when she would wake up.</p><p>“She’s been through quite an ordeal,” Lance had said when Bow and George gave them the study, his smile kind but his eyes tired as he stripped off his medical gloves and tucked them crisply into the pocket of his white coat. “Let me get the bad news out of the way first. Mara suffered extreme blunt force trauma that caused lacerations to quite a few of her vital organs. She suffered a skull fracture and multiple ruptured disks along with a broken cheek, clavicle, shoulder, and pelvis all on the right side, as well as a few ribs. She was hemorrhaging when we started to operate and coded twice.”</p><p>The room was so quiet they could hear the low hiss of the central air system moving air through the vents. Adora felt like vomiting but wouldn’t have been able to rise to do so with how tightly her grandmother had their fingers laced.</p><p>“Now to the good news. Despite that laundry list I just rattled off, we were able to stabilize her and stop the bleeding. She’s a hearty woman. I’d even call her stubborn. Injuries like the ones she sustained should have been a death sentence, but she’s clinging on tenaciously. We have her medically induced and intubated to help combat brain swelling and take any unnecessary stress off her body. If she holds steady for the next few days, there’s a chance we can get her breathing on her own again. In fact, I’m more than certain Mara is going to wake up and pull the tube out herself. That’s how stubborn your daughter is, Razz.”</p><p>“Will she…” Adora’s throat worked in her attempt to spit the words out before they died on her tongue. “Will she be the same? I don’t mean the same-same. I know recovery will take time but…will she be able to live a normal life? Will she remember us with a head injury? Am I going to see my mother again?”</p><p>Tears were an inevitability at this point, and Lance didn’t shame her for speaking through a cascade of them.</p><p>“Head injuries are always tricky business, you’re right. To help combat that, I’ve put your mother under a Cerebrum Halo. She’s also lying on a cura-Bed which will help speed the healing process in a more even manner.”</p><p>“May we see her?” Gran asked before Adora, to which Lance nodded and escorted them to a quiet room off the main hall.</p><p>Five days later, Adora sat in the same chair she’d occupied since being shown into the room, watching her mother over the knuckles pressed beneath her nose. The woman on the bed was a stranger. For starters, she was too still. Mara Hawkins was a creature of movement. From the time she woke to the time she laid her head on the pillow, she was in a constant state of motion. Seeing her immobile felt wrong. Almost perverse.</p><p>Blue light from the Cerebrum Halo pooled in the hollow of her closed eyes and along the bruised planes of her swollen face, the translucent arc speaking in stats and flashes of light to the adhesive chips running along Mara’s hairline. Every so many seconds, there was a terrible hiss and rush as oxygen was pumped through the tube into her lungs. She hadn’t awakened as quickly as Doctor Lance anticipated, but he held firm her vitals were strong. She just needed more time. </p><p>Time, however, was something Adora was running dangerously low on.</p><p>“Hey, mama. I’m…this will be my last check-in for a while. The tram leaves soon, and I’ll be on it with Bow to Bright Moon Bay. George booked us a ship. I can’t actually believe I’m leaving.”</p><p> Adora chanced a look down at the fat duffle bag leaning against her leg. It was stuffed to bursting with clothes, toiletries, and tools that weren’t hers. All Adora’s belongings burned with the Benbow. These were borrowed items that didn’t help at all with her feeling of displacement.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she sighed, standing so she could take Mara’s hand one last time. A quick glance at the clock on the wall told her their precious minutes were up. “For everything. For all of this. For taking more from our family than we can give. For disappointing you at every turn. For… putting you here. I’m going to make this right,” Adora whispered, her lips a hairsbreadth from her mother’s brow. “I wish I could go with your blessing, but I swear I will become who you want me to be. I won’t disappoint you again, and I love you.”</p><p>It was the hardest thing, letting go. Stuck in the doorway, Adora swallowed down the memories of another who walked away. Was she no better than Light Hope? Was she breaking her mother’s heart like she had? Guilt soured her stomach and made her eyes burn, but the wheels of fate were grinding with or without her. Adora was powerless to stop the movement, so like a good dog, she put her head down and followed.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>Adora made sure the door was latched behind her before turning to face Bow’s soft, almost apologetic smile. Like her, he had a duffle bag over one shoulder. Unlike her, that was his third bag also accompanied by four trunks. Granted, most of the equipment he was bringing belonged to the University, but the rest were personal effects.</p><p>“How are you holding up?”</p><p>“As well as can be expected,” Adora managed a weak smile, following her friend through the halls to the atrium at the front of the building. A sled--much fancier and newer than the old scrap Gran drove them to the estate with--idled just outside the thrown open double doors, a group of staff moving back and forth with trunks and heavy equipment. Adora spotted an older gentleman struggling with what looked like an enormous soundboard and moved to help only to be shooed away.</p><p>“Are you bringing half your workshop with you or is that just your personal vanity?”</p><p>“Ah-ha,” Bow winced, rubbing the back of his fresh buzz cut. “Doctor Doppler was <em>very</em> adamant about bringing as much tech with us as possible seeing as we’re going to be rediscovering an unknown and uncharted planet.”</p><p>“Opportunist,” Adora chuckled, wrinkling her nose in mock disgust.</p><p>“<em>Researcher</em>,” Bow corrected haughtily.</p><p>“Same thing.”    </p><p>Bow bumped her playfully with his shoulder and went to join George at the front of the sled currently having an animated conversation with the driver. Much to their joint disappointment, neither George nor Lance had the capabilities of leaving at the drop of a hat for an expedition of unknown length. Lance was one of Bright Moon’s most respected surgeons, and George taught at the University leaving Bow as the only viable candidate to go in their stead alongside Adora－who was the only person who could access the map.</p><p>Pack stowed with the rest, Adora gave the courtyard a once over and spotted a familiar figure standing at the edge of a coy pond. Gran Razz didn’t look up when her granddaughter joined her, picking apart pieces of pie crust and feeding the fat ducks making laps. Neither woman needed to speak. They’d spoken their goodbyes hours ago, but Adora wanted to soak in just a few more quiet moments with the last remaining member of her family.</p><p>“We’re all packed. Nothing but to take that leap.” Turning on her heels, Adora watched the last of the sled buttoned up for the journey. Why did the doors closing feel like a period at the end of a sentence? </p><p>“So…do you think the universe is ready to meet Adora Rizzo Hawkins?” she asked, the ghost of a smile lifting one corner of her mouth. Gran let out a puff of a laugh. In five days Adora watched her age as many years, but her eyes still sparkled. Perhaps not with that dazzling shade of blue she’d had seen in the study, but familiar black iris’ found her blues one, a smile in their dark depths.</p><p>“My dear, you’re going to rattle the stars,” Gran Razz said with a gentle hand on her forearm. Then she took her granddaughter’s hand and placed something in it. If Adora was expecting some mysterious key to the strange events she’d witnessed in the past week she was sorely mistaken. The bundle was warm and tired off with a sturdy bow. Even through the layers, she could smell the small pies waiting for her.</p><p>“For the road,” Gran said, patting her arms as she moved off. “Pies make everything better.”</p><p>Suddenly feeling she might burst if she didn’t do anything, Adora ran for her grandmother and wrapped her in a crushing hug. “To the moon and back across the stars,” she whispered into the old woman’s ear, reciting their routine goodnight exchange. “That’s how much I love you.”</p><p>“To the moon and back across the stars,” Gran sniffed, fighting back tears of her own. “Go have an adventure, Rizz.”</p><p>“Will you be here?”</p><p>“Without a doubt.”</p><p>Fearing if she clung any longer her nerves would gutter out, Adora tore away and climbed into the sled next to Bow, clearing her eyes of moisture as the hulking hover-sled whirred to life below them. If her friend noticed he didn’t draw attention, giving Adora privacy until the hum of excitement was even too much for her dampened spirits to ignore.</p><p>The sled would dock at a waiting shuttle ready to ferry them across the shallow expanse of space between the planet and the half-moon spaceport that hung like a child’s misplaced sticker in the sky. From there they would embark on foot to find their ship after retrieving a few final provisions, but in all honesty, Adora completely forgotten about that part, fixating instead on the stomach-swooping, gut rearranging kick of booster rockets pushing her back into her seat as the shuttle lurched off planet Bright Moon.</p><p>Out her window, she watched the clouds rip past--the land growing further and further away--until the planet’s orbital curve winked into view at the forefront of a dark swatch of blue-black space, sunlight glinting off the atmosphere.</p><p>Space. <em>She was in space</em>.</p><p>Well, she was in the Shallows. True space awaited beyond the port city, but this was the furthest Adora had ever gone. Her solar rig and stolen sessions in the sky seemed a paltry toy compared to the heavy metal blasting her through a pocket of anti-grav. When her hair went weightless, Adora’s manic grin threatened to split her cheeks.    </p><p>In hardly any time the sled docked with all the finesse of a settling feather－leave it to the Sagittarius’ to hire a professional sled driver－and Bow and Adora were disembarking into a world both alien and mundane.</p><p>Life.</p><p>That’s what thrummed here in all its glory and grit. Life at its simplest and most bizarre. Bodies milled about, contributing to a pulse they had no knowledge of being a part of while the sky in any given direction screamed and zoomed with an endless barrage of ships. Ebb and flow, just like the tides. Adora stood in the middle of the controlled chaos outside the landing platform and breathed deep, savoring the smells of ship exhaust and astral wharf. She’d been to the market and to City Center in her quadrant often enough, but there wasn’t a hum quite like a port city.</p><p>Bright Moon Bay was a concave sliver of prefabbed port hanging just shy of the planet’s grav-pull. Once a small space station, the Bay experienced a boom in growth and enterprise after the second Royal War when Bright Moon became an invaluable supplier of Radiant Ultraviolet Nucleon Energy－better known as Rune－harvested from minerals deep under the planet’s crust. The stones provided a seemingly endless source of energy for deep space travel and won the war, and to the victor went the spoils. Bright Moon－with it’s surplus of Moonstone, one of the heartiest gems for air-Ship propulsion－was put on the map, and the spaceport thrived.   </p><p>Adora stood in the middle of that humming beast, head back, soaking it all in. There was something romantic about being a drifter in a crowd. No one knew her. No one looked twice. She was completely invisible yet seen at the same time, becoming a part of the woven tapestry. Adora felt like a key that had finally found its lock after nineteen years of trial and error. Freedom tasted sweeter than she could have imagined.</p><p>“Adora! Wait up!”</p><p>Ah, that’s right. Her freedom still had tethers.  </p><p>“Sorry, Bow!” she called over her shoulder, climbing a lamp post and raising her arm so her friend could find her. Bow let out a squeak and made his way through the crowd, muttering apologies to every shoulder he bumped along the way.</p><p>“Boy, this place is packed!” he breathed with a grin that bunched his cheeks and made his white teeth flash in the light.</p><p>“Ports usually are, but you’d know that if you ever left the classroom” Adora joked, slinging her pack onto her back and double-checking the placement of her meager wallet by tapping her chest. No chance anyone would lift it from her bra unless they wanted to lose an arm.</p><p>“I get out!”</p><p>“Going to study group does not count as going out.”</p><p>Bow adopted a mock offended air. “I’ll have you know, I do more than just study, Miss Hawkins.”</p><p>“Running from potential dates doesn’t count either,” Adora smirked, knowing she’d struck a nerve by how fast Bow whipped around.</p><p>“<em>I do not</em>－”</p><p>“Which way to our dock?”</p><p>Bow staggered verbally like someone would tripping over a rock, struggling to right himself. “Um…right…I have that right here. Let me just…” A brief pat through his pockets revealed that Bow, despite all his planning, had misplaced their docking information. “Crap.”</p><p>“Looks like it’s the urchin to the rescue!” Adora crowed, climbing the post again to give her the height advantage necessary to scope out a viable path. “We’ll just do it the old fashion way.”   </p><p>The ‘old fashion way’ involved a lot of stranger conversation, excessive apologizing, and animated gestures. After a bit, Adora got the lay of the land, so to speak, and was able to navigate to the docks after a final directional referral from a pair of repair bots clinging to the side of a brick building.</p><p>Like any good port, Bright Moon Bay was tiered, the lower levels providing docking for larger vessels. That’s where Bow and Adora found themselves an hour later, wandering the miles and miles of wharf, double-checking the bay numbers while they chatted amiably about nothing in particular. It was a welcome, low-cal conversation that allowed Adora to relax and ease into the understanding in just a few short hours she would be aboard a launching air-Ship destined for ports unknown. She was so relaxed, in fact, she didn’t notice a change in Bow until she heard him audibly squeal.</p><p>“Oh my god!” Bow bounced, grabbing Adora’s arm like a schoolgirl who had just seen their crush. In fact, Adora was getting flashbacks of precise instanced where that exact thing happened. “Oh my god, Adora, <em>that’s our ship</em>! There she is! Oh my god, this is actually happening!”</p><p>Following Bow’s guiding finger, Adora’s eyes traveled skyward until they finally settled on the vessel floating behind a backdrop of sky-blue artificial atmosphere like something out of a goddamn painting. To say her jaw hit the deck would have been an understatement.</p><p>Even with the sails secured and anchor down, the two hundred ton warp-Schooner hovered like a razor in the docking grav, sunlight glinting off its sharp edges and smooth underbelly like rays bouncing off the ripples in a stream. Sleek and trim with a smart paint job and an impeccable manicure, the ship was clearly built for slicing through chunks of deep space with the ease of an ion-blade, and Adora felt herself mentally dismantle the physics behind the vessel one iron-wood plank at a time.       </p><p>  “What a beauty,” she whistled, moving around to the gangplank to get a better look at the bowsprit. The ship had no figurehead other than a round shield bigger than Adora could splay herself on the wharf embossed with two mismatched staves crossed over a pair of spread wings. The shield's colors were soft hues of pink and purple, oddly contrasting with the white, blue, red, and silver paint accents.</p><p>“The <em>R.M.S. Eternia?</em>” Adora turned to face Bow, eyebrow quirked. “You booked us a ship that’s literally named the <em>R.M.S. Ocean</em>?”</p><p>“I thought it was…fitting. And the captain comes highly recommended!”</p><p>“Bow, you do see the stupid humor in taking a ship called the Ocean onto the celestial ocean in search of a planet named Ocean right?”</p><p>“I…” Bow blew out his cheeks, explanation dying on his tongue. “I did not put that together. No.”</p><p>“Some scientist you are,” Adora scoffed with a grin. “How was it you swung this expedition again?”</p><p>“Bribery, extortion, and pleading.”</p><p>Adora would have laughed longer had Bow’s face not betrayed him. “Wait what? Seriously? You had to extort someone?”</p><p>“I mean kind of? Check the sky. I’m too afraid to look.”</p><p>Brow scrunching into a frown, Adora did just that but couldn’t see anything other than an errant cloud or passing ship. “What am I looking for again?”</p><p>“Gullible. It’s written up there somewhere.”</p><p>“You dick!” she gasped, shoving her grinning friend away.</p><p>“And that’s why you’re not at University.”</p><p>Chasing each other up the gangplank, Bow and Adora dissolved into giggling fits until they stepped onto the <em>Eternia’s </em>main deck and felt their hearts fly into their throats simultaneously. Like two divers standing on the bank of a rushing river, Bow and Adora stood on the edge of a flurry of activity involving most of the crew. Bodies scaled the rigging and shrouds, swinging from rope to rope like acrobats as shouts were called and answered by unseen speakers. Boxes soared through the sky, hefted by long-armed cranes and settled deep in the hold via a massive hatch in the center of the deck. At the center of it all was a severe-looking woman standing like an iron oak in a storm, her voice carrying the unmistakable weight of unyielding authority.</p><p>“Good morning, Captain!” Bow called, raising a hand despite the woman having her back to the two as they boarded the vessel. “Everything ship-shape and ready to set sail?”</p><p>Adora wanted to smack her forehead but refrained, settling for a ‘are you serious’ gesture. She caught the joke, but judging from the starched, wrinkle-free fit of the woman’s purple jacket and black trousers to the exceptionally tight bun of pastel hair knotted at the back of her head, if she ever smiled, even once, she would probably disintegrate.</p><p>“Ship-shape it is, Sir, but I’m not the Captain,” she said with the crisp gait of an officer, turning ever so slightly to look at Bow over her shoulder. Her smoky gray eyes flicked to Adora, and the blonde felt herself prickle with impulsive delinquency. Definitely ex-military, this one. Oh, what fun.</p><p>“Oh?” Bow stammered, caught off guard, and reddening under the collar.</p><p>“Indeed, Sir. The Captain’s aloft.” With a curt wave into the rigging, three sets of eyes rose skyward, and two sets of eyebrows almost flew clear off their respective foreheads.</p><p>A figure moved around the rigging…or more like blinked. Every so many seconds the body would jump from one side to the other in a shower of crackling glitter. One second it was running full steam across a mizzen yard only to appear on a balustrade in the next blink and then swinging from the shrouds before appearing in the netting. The movement reminded Adora of a dragonfly unable to figure out where it wanted to land…only the person wasn’t flying. They were teleporting.   </p><p>“Oh stars,” Bow breathed. “I didn’t know this was a Moonstone ship.”</p><p>“What’s a－”</p><p>The woman aloft suddenly jumped from her place on a lower yardarm and disappeared into thin air－was it Adora’s imagination or was that a manic grin on her round face?－only to reappear directly in front of them in a pop of glitter like a firecracker. Adora felt the hot spark spatter her face that was gone as quickly as they appeared. Hardly losing stride, the woman approached her First Mate with the air of pure authority, back so straight it was a wonder there wasn’t a stick shoved up her butt.</p><p>“Ms. Angella,” the Captain huffed, straightening her equally pressed and trimmed uniform with a few swift tugs. For someone so light on their feet she was a heavier set young woman, though Adora knew better than to judge. She probably had core muscles like a brick wall. “I have searched this creaking tub from stem to stern and <em>as usual…</em>everything is spot on. Can you do nothing wrong?”</p><p>“You flatter me,” Ms. Angella said with a wiry grin and a faint nod of appreciation for the complement before gesturing to an astonished Bow and Adora. “Ma’am, the benefactor of our voyage has arrived.”</p><p>“Ah-ha,” the Captain grinned, making a stately turn that almost clicked the shined heels of her boots together. Her two-toned pastel hair shimmered in the light, making the purple of her eyes practically dance. “You must be Doctor Sagittarius, I presume?”</p><p>Adora surprised expression closed into one of confusion that brought her eyebrows together so fast it was a wonder they didn’t clap. She couldn’t help notice how Bow averted his gaze and turned the deepest shade of red possible for his already dark complexion.     </p><p>“Captain Glimmer Wellen,” she said, taking Bow’s hand and giving it a firm, professional shake while launching into a fast-talking sales pitch. “Spoke with your father earlier, so allow me to give you the same resume rundown. Fourth-generation captain of the Royal Navy. Ran a few passes with the Mystacor Armada a few years back. Nasty business, but I won’t bore you with my scars. You’re already met my First Mate, Ms. Angella. Sterling, tough, honest, brave, and true. Have I missed anything?”</p><p>“<em>Please</em>, Captain,” Ms. Angella sighed good-naturedly, offering another dry chuckle that barely broke her attentive stance, and Adora felt herself warming to the two. Their dynamic was less like a Captain and her loyal officer and more familial. It didn’t help they also looked similar, but Adora kept her opinions to herself. No use shoving her foot in her mouth with a question like, “Hey, is that your mom?”</p><p>Bow cleared his throat, climbing out of his stupor. “You are…ah…you’re much younger than I expected.”</p><p>Now Adora <em>did</em> smack her forehead, but the Captain didn’t seem to take offense.</p><p>“Youngest officer to make Captain in Bright Moon history, and that’s a pin I wear proudly in my cap, Doctor. Age doesn’t always beget wisdom. Sometimes, the young deserve to shine, no? Much like yourself. Doctor Beauregard Sagittarius, youngest astrophysicist and galaxian cartographer in his class. Showing up the big boys and girl twice your age. Commendable and admirable, I must say.”</p><p>Adora’s eyes rolled involuntarily－she was going to throttle Bow over the whole ‘doctor’ thing because as far as she knew that title was yet to be bestowed－and fought back a groan. It was like watching two peacocks preen themselves in a mirror. Yes, yes, all these accolades and prestige. Must be exhausting being so well-educated.</p><p>“Ah, yes,” Bow coughed, growing uncomfortable. “Anyway, may I introduce to you the second member of this excursion, Adora Hawkins. Adora, you see, is the one who discovered－”</p><p>“I am well aware,” Captain Glimmer interrupted curtly and readjusted her purple gaze.</p><p>Just like that, the good feeling was gone.</p><p>Adora recognized Glimmer’s look and bristled. It was the same look judges stared down at her with from their seats as they passed sentence. It was the same look the officers at the jail gave her when she shuffled past. It was the same look her teachers had given her when she presented them with an alternative solution to the problem at hand and chided her for either cheating or misunderstanding the assignment.</p><p>It was the no-nonsense, judicially appraising look of a superior looking at a subordinate, and it made Adora’s skin crawl.</p><p>“If the two of you would be so kind as to follow me.” It wasn’t a request. “I believe this conversation would be better had in my quarters.”</p><p>Silently, Bow and Adora fell into step behind the Captain. As expected, Glimmer’s quarters were luxurious, as befit the perks of position. Adora pretended not to notice the filigree or the carpets, or the hand-carved furniture, or the ornate plex-window situated behind an enormous dark wood desk. She tried not to let jealousy creep into her soul. Glimmer had obviously earned this title despite their gap in age being quite small, but Adora had to wonder if such luxuries could have been hers had her path been a different one.</p><p> “Doctor,” Glimmer began once the door was shut behind them and the sounds of activity grew faint. “I will caution you only once to keep the reason for this voyage firmly locked behind the trap of your jaw. Blathering about the discovery of a treasure map, or even breathing the word, dances along a level of ineptitude which borders on the imbecilic. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.”</p><p>Adora’s jaw dropped at the same time Bow’s clacked shut. He took several halting breaths like an engine trying to turn over before finally finding verbal traction at the exact moment Captain Glimmer plowed ahead.</p><p>“I will make this as monosyllabic as possible. I…don’t much care for the crew <em>your father </em>hired for this voyage. Safe to say, I wouldn’t trust any of them to clean my toilet without stripping the porcelain let alone man a ship, but their credentials matched what <em>your </em>father requested, so here we are. Now, I would like to see the map.”</p><p>Stuck between outrage and compliance, Bow turned helplessly to Adora who shrugged and dug the sphere out of her inner pocket and tossed it across the room to the waiting captain. She wouldn’t admit she pettily hoped the magnetism that once held the sphere glued to her palm would snap the ball back to her just before Glimmer caught it. Just to be an ass.</p><p>“Fascinating,” Captain Glimmer marveled, turning the orb over in her hands. “This tech is ancient. I can’t imagine how you managed to crack the code.”</p><p>“Just followed the prompts,” Adora said giving the woman her best shit-eating grin.</p><p>“Indeed.” Inspection complete, Glimmer crossed the room and opened a floor-to-ceiling cabinet, speaking as she went. “Ms. Hawkins, in the future you will address me as Captain or Ma’am, is that clear?”</p><p><em>I’d rather call you Princess while throwing your ass over the side of the ship, </em>Adora scowled, chafing against Glimmer’s tone. She wasn’t some backwater delinquent with sticky fingers and an inability to walk the straight and narrow. In fact, Adora was sure she could run circles around Glimmer, a woman so very close to her age but so many leagues out of her social circles. She didn’t realize her silence had stretched beyond shocked and into defiance until she was addressed again.</p><p>“Ms. Hawkins?”</p><p>“Yes, <em>Ma’am</em>,” she gritted out, eyes high and chin raised. Adora wouldn’t, under any circumstance, give the Captain the satisfaction of watching her kowtow.</p><p>“Excellent,” Glimmer nodded, securing the map in a hefty vault. “The map will remain under lock at key unless in use, and it will only be used in my private quarters, is that understood?”</p><p>“Yes, Ma’am,” the two replied in aggravated unison.</p><p>“Now, as I’m sure you are aware, Ms. Hawkins, you are under my supervision for the duration of this voyage. As directed by the Magistrate, I have effectively become both your Commanding Officer and Probation Officer in one fell swoop. I will be quite frank with you, I do not like being put in this position, and I am not accustomed to having this sort of riff-raff on my ship.”</p><p>Adora’s jaw muscles corded in her attempt to keep her temper in check.</p><p>“However, you come highly recommended by both Doctor Lance and George Sagittarius who assure me you are a bright, driven, intelligent young woman who will make an exceptional spacer. I’m inclined to take their word with a grain of salt.”</p><p>Captain Glimmer leaned forward and planted her elbows on the desk, purple eyes pinning Adora in place.</p><p>“Let me be crystal with you. The only reason you are on this ship is due to the request of another and the agreement of the courts. Your judicial freedom is in my hands, Ms. Hawkins. I will be delivering a full report to the Magistrate upon our return to port, and what I say will determine if you spend the duration of your time before trial for your most recent offense in prison or if you walk free with a clean slate. The choice is entirely up to you. Make the correct ones and your future is sound. Cross me, and I will bury you. Are we clear?”</p><p>“Yes, Ma’am.” Adora barely had the capability to drag the words out of her cold body.</p><p>“Wonderful. Now, since we have limited space and you have little use in officer’s quarters, I am placing you under the supervision of our cook. Ms. Angella, please show Adora to her quarters. Doctor Sagittarius, I would have a word with you in private.”</p><p>Bow flinched at Adora’s sizzling glare as she turned on her heels and stalked past him. This wasn’t what she had in mind when the voyage was booked, and Adora couldn’t help feel a stab of betrayal low in her guts. Bow hadn’t said a word, yet he and his family were the ones who booked the fucking ship. Was that how he saw her? As lesser?</p><p>“Adora－”</p><p>“Don’t,” she snapped, shoving past and making for the door with Ms. Angella close on her heels.</p><p>Out in the hall, the noise of the ship returned tenfold, almost drowning out what Ms. Angella was saying as they wove their way across the main deck and descended into the lower levels. Below the flush of artificial sunlight, a similar degree of activity unfolded like ants in an anthill. A rainbow of alien bodies scurried past Adora, their lingering stares making her hunch.   </p><p>“As the Captain instructed, you will be under the supervision of our head cook. Answer to him unless the Captain calls for you directly,” Angella said, leading Adora down a series of stairs into the hull of the ship. Had she not been in a simmering mood, Adora would have taken a moment to gape at how large the galley was. Without trouble, it could hold the entire crew at once with room to spare, bench seating aplenty.</p><p>The circular kitchen lingered at the back, lit by the pit-stove in the center that threw off shafts of smoky orange light from the coals alight in its lower chamber. Even with the <em>Eternia </em>docked, Adora could smell the start of a meal underway, raw ingredients climbing into her nose. Over the din of activity above drifted the warbling notes of someone whistling an unfamiliar tune as a hulking silhouette lumbered into view.  </p><p>“<em>Mister Silver!</em>” Angella called, her voice like a cannon in the small space. Adora swore and stuck her finger in her ear to stop the ringing only to jump in surprise when something bumped her right shoulder.</p><p>“Watch it, asshole!”</p><p>Feet tangling beneath her, Adora stumbled away just in time to miss a lithe body carrying a barrel on their shoulders shove past.</p><p>“Language, Ms. Silver,” Angella cautioned with a frown that could turn a waterfall to stone.</p><p>“Sorry,” the woman－at least Adora guess the speaker was female－muttered without an ounce of actual apology. “Watch it, <em>neophyte</em>. I don’t need you underfoot.”</p><p>“<em>Ms. Silver</em>,” Angella warned, the sharpness in her voice enough to split skin.</p><p>“Cat!” Adora jumped again－honestly, was shouting in closed spaces fucking necessary?－and blinked in stunned surprise at the body moving out of the kitchen to intercept them. “How many times have I told yah tah watch yer mouth! An in front of Ms. Angella, no less! Apologies, Ma’am. My niece shouldn’t have such a mouth.”</p><p>Body…wasn’t a good way of putting it. Amalgamation was a better word. Cyborg was the proper term, and Adora felt something in her subconscious recoil like she’d just discovered a pit viper under a rock. The man was the kind of thickset one would expect from a typical blue-collar worker with a pension for chronic boozing. Thick of limb and gut, he had a jolly quality to him that crashed against the mechanical mayhem of his right side like a wave against a cliff face.</p><p>Right arm. Right leg. Right eye.  </p><p>In an age where beautification of the body was as easy as breathing, the stark, almost industrial quality of the man’s prosthetics were both fascinating and terrifying. Where his left side moved with the natural grace of a someone who knew his way around tool and utensils, his right moved with an unnatural smoothness born of fine-tuned enhancements. Even his bionic eye had been purposely left mechanical, a golden orb of circuits and nano-lights that seemed to see everything at once.  </p><p>“Mr. Silver, this is Adora Hawkins. One of the newest members of our crew. She is accompanying Doctor Sagittarius,” Angella introduced.</p><p>“Ha-ha, lovely to meet a friendly face, Ace! A pleasure!” Silver crowed with an alarmingly charming smile and put out a hand that begged to be shaken had it not been bristling with tools better suited for gutting and cleaning game. “Whoa! Apologies,” Silver exclaimed at his deadly grip and swiveled the mechanisms in his wrist that brought a more agreeable hand forward. “Let’s try that again.”</p><p>“Nice to…meet you,” Adora hedged, gingerly taking the cyborg’s hand.</p><p>“Likewise! An don’t be put off by dis hunk of hardware. Looks vision but it does come in mighty…<em>handy!</em>” Silver sputtered at his own lame joke, and Adora couldn’t help feel her chest warm. After the chilly welcome from the Captain and First Mate, it was nice to see a friendly face that seemed even half genuine.</p><p>“Oh my god, you just couldn’t help yourself.”</p><p>Attention on Silver, Adora didn’t see the second figure emerge from the kitchen until she set a box of squirming…something beside a cutting board and hitched her hip on the counter. The girl was a razor from head to toe with a smile that cut just as sharply.  If Silver was a boulder this woman was a rapier, looking trim in black breeches, calfskin boots, and a loose gray top that somehow enhanced the sneered amusement in her mismatched eyes: one yellow, one blue. Adora made out the perk of feline ears poking out of her shaggy jaw-length hair, and the twitch of a tail curling around her leg.</p><p>It was brief, just a trickle down her spine like an icy spider, but Adora thought she recognized something about those eyes.</p><p>“Catra,” the woman said, taking it upon herself to doll out introductions.</p><p>“Cat-ra?” Adora repeated as if tasting the word, a smile with a shade of too much pink coloring her cheeks. She liked to give Bow hell when it came to flirting, but she was no better. “That short for Katrina or long for something else?”</p><p>“No,” Catra deadpanned, “it’s short for ‘I think you’re deaf, so I’ll repeat myself’. Catra. One word. Two syllables.”</p><p>“Cat!” Silver barked again before Angella could rain hell upon them. “Haven’t even started the voyage an yer already makin waves!”</p><p>“No offense meant, Uncle. No offense meant,” Catra mockingly apologized with her hands up and a wry smile pulling at her lips. “Just some harmless razzing.”</p><p>“Mr. Silver,” Angella announced tartly. “I’ll leave you to finish your duties. As of this moment, the Captain has put Adora under your supervision.”</p><p> “What?!” Catra yelped, beating her uncle－who really didn’t look a thing like her－to the exclamation. “We already have a staffed galley. We don’t <em>need </em>a cabin girl.”</p><p>“Captain’s orders,” Angella said, turning on her heels. “See to it Ms. Hawkins is kept busy. Even with a full ship, I’m sure you can find suitable tasks.”</p><p>And with that, the First Mate swept from the room leaving the smoking ruins of her woebegone introduction behind.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Aaahhh and here we are. The first fated meeting ;) These two idiots aren't going to know what hit them.</p><p>So what did you think! Don't be shy! I love chatting with you all. Also, don't be shy and come on over to my Twitter at </p><p>https://twitter.com/Prop_nerd</p><p>And my Tumblr at:</p><p>https://not-so-secret-nerd.tumblr.com</p><p>Scream at me. Nerd out. Or whatever. Bring your friends. Throw this fic at them! XD</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Launch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Fucking wonderful.” Catra threw up her hands and moved deeper into the kitchen, picking up seemingly random objects and throwing them into equally random directions. “They leave us to babysit a <em>neophyte</em>. I’ve got enough goddamn work to get done, John. I’m not chasing after a toddler who no grave-legs.”</p><p>Adora felt her cheeks redden but stood with what she hoped was affirming confidence, chest puffed out. “I know my way around spacer equipment, thank you very much.”</p><p>“Sure you do, <em>sweetheart,</em>” Catra sneered over her shoulder as she aggressively shelved a box twice the size of her head. “Bet your daddy taught you everything he knew about his junk hover-sled in the garage. News flash, taking a shuddle up here doesn’t make you a spacer.”</p><p>“I’m a solar-rigger,” Adora declared with the same level of venemous scorn, showing her teeth in a grin that was anything but friendly. “So yes, I know my way around equipment.”</p><p>“<em>Fucking Saints</em>,” Catra swore, giving Adora a look somewhere between discovering she’d stepped in dog shit and eating something rancid. “You’re one of those lunatics that straps rockets to their feet and purposely falls from the sky? I take it back. You’re not a neophyte, you’re <em>suicidal</em>.”</p><p>If Adora’s face got any hotter she’d light the wood above her on fire.</p><p>“Cat! Enough! Yer jaw doesn’t need to be moving to finish yer work. Get to it before launch!” Silver snapped, breaking the growing tension before it could manifest into something physical.  </p><p>“Whatever. See you around, <em>rigger.</em>” Catra waved mockingly and removed herself from the galley, swinging her hips in a swagger of victory as she did.</p><p>“Now don’t you go minding her,” Silver drawled with a forced chuckle, heaving a jug of something vicious out from an open crate and lashing it in place. “Starts of voyages are always hard on Cat. Not an excuse, mind, but her tail crimps something fierce while docked. It’s the liftoff, yah see. Messes with her senses.”</p><p>Adora couldn’t say she understood, but the cook’s easy manner and kind smile helped take the edge off Catra’s ridicule. Moving to an empty bench where she could better think, Adora anticipated her butt to make contact with wood. Instead, she sat on something squishy and warm that abruptly shifted and let out a rattling growl.</p><p>Spinning in place with a yelp, Adora stared at the bench now occupied by a large, dark gray feline with a translucent mane of red spines. It bared finger-length teeth at her and issued a hiss she could feel prickle the hairs of her arm.</p><p>“Melog!” Silver barked, drawing the creature's attention. “Don't you be spitting at Ace like it wasn’t yer damn fault. Yer the one who decided to nap while invisible. Least it wasn't Rogelio's scaly ass landin on yah.”</p><p>Adora didn’t know at which thing to look at and settled on the being that could easily take a finger off.</p><p>“Melog?” she repeated the name, watching the cat calm with a regal shake of its head and resettle on the bench, its mane cooling to a smooth, almost watery blue.</p><p>“Cat and I found him on Krytis Prime some number of years ago. Took a shinning to us and hasn’t left our side since. Comes in handy every now an then, but he’s about as useful as any ship cat. Yeah, I’m talkin to you, yah lazy puss. Sleepin in the sun more often than not an causing mischief is what yet good at an nothing else. No, don’t give me that look.”</p><p>Seeming to have had enough adventure for one day, Melog rose and trotted out of the galley, and Adora idly wondered if Captain Glimmer was aware she had an invisible predator in her company.</p><p>Then again, Adora couldn’t be bothered to care what the Captain knew or didn’t know.</p><p>“Lots of surprises on this ship. Specially for new fliers.”</p><p>“How’d you know?” she half-smiled, rubbing the back of her neck.</p><p>Silver gave Adora an appraising look flavored with sly smile. The nano-light of his prosthetic skipped back and forth, tracking her. “Yah got the stride of the landlocked, Ace. Even if yah fly the skies every now and then. Stiff as a stick up the ass.” He punctuated this with a wink that left Adora laughing.</p><p>“I’ve never been on a ship quite like this before, but it’s been a dream since I was a kid to sail the stars. Guess I’m getting a crash course.”</p><p>“Well then,” he rumbled with an infectious grin, sweeping his arm out in a grand gesture, “be on yer way, lass! Ain’t no pressing matters need meeting right now. Get yerself acquainted with the levels. Yer gonna be cleaning most of them shortly.” Silver’s bellowing laughter came from the tips of his toes, and despite his words sounding more like a warning than lighthearted banter, Adora couldn’t fault him. Curiosity was an itch she couldn’t scratch like a vampire gnat sucking on her neck.</p><p>Leaving him to his pre-launch prep, Adora struck out to explore her new home. There were three levels to the <em>Eternia</em> that didn’t include the main deck above. The galley and crew quarters were on the second level along with the mechanic’s quarters and repair shop. Third was for dry storage, gun ports and infirmary. Fourth was the bilge, cargo hold and the engine room. Adora wandered all four decks, dodging crewmen as she went.</p><p>The corridors were a maze of mismatched machinery, pocket rooms, and low ceilings. To any normal person, the halls would have triggered with worst kind of claustrophobia. For Adora, it was like being hugged by a dear old friend. The world and all its unnecessary problems and struggles were confined to outside the hull of the ship. In here, she had one focused task. She was only as good as she allowed herself to be, and Adora would rattle the stars like Gran said.   </p><p>Hands in her pocket, she didn’t realize she’d wandered into the deepest bowels of the air-Ship until her feet landed her at the threshold of perhaps the most important－and most technologically complex－room in the vessel.</p><p>The engine room.</p><p>Situated three decks below where the main, mizzen, and foremast seated themselves, the oval-shaped room dominated the lowest deck, thickly insulated with foot-thick DexSteel walls hearty enough to stop most canon fire and accessible through only one equally thick door. The fact Adora found the room standing open was curious. Pre-launch procedure usually demanded the room be sealed off to keep the pressure equalized, but this lapse in protocol provided her with a unique and－dare she think it－exciting opportunity.</p><p>Checking several times to make certain the coast was clear, Adora slipped past the threshold and waded into the dim shadows, arms loose at her side as she gazed in awe.</p><p>Amid the overwhelming technology and dizzying array of pipes, wires, gears, leavers and gauges sat a fat trunk that couldn’t be anything other than the mainmast. Two other trunks stood nearby－the mizzen and foremast－but Adora only had eyes for the main for one terribly amazing reason. Behind transparent DexPlex ovals taller and wider than her height or arm-span hung an opalescent crystal caged in copper housing.</p><p>The <em>Eternia’s</em> moonstone and the source of the ship’s power.</p><p>“Holy crap you’re gorgeous,” Adora whispered, daring to rest her palm against the DexPlex. Her eyes danced from one wonder to the next, picking apart the complicated contraption that connected one highly amplified crystal to the entire ship. “You have to be at least a one-ton moonstone. Copper housing to help conduct power to the boosters. But what feeds you? Oh my god…” Adora searched for and found a series of gauges nearby and felt her heart soar. “You’re a solar-rig! You power the propulsion and the sails return that power to you! You’re a clean burner!”</p><p>Excited, Adora started making circles around the device, muttering as she went. “Ambient filters to regulate raw flux from powder flash, and you’ve got a grav-catch! Holy shit, you balance the gravity on the ship like a gyroscope. I know gyroscopes! You’re a bit outdated, sorry, but how far do you cast your gravity well?” That answer came from looking at the other two mast trunks fed by the moonstone through a series of translucent tubing that looked weirdly like intestines circling the ceiling. Adora made circles around each mast, reading the schematics of the machinery through sight alone. “Hmm…you’re a shower not a grower. Not surprised, but twenty feet isn’t bad. Saints, I bet you could jump to warp in six seconds flat without even straining.”</p><p>“Three, if she’s pushed, and the grav-well is thirty feet with a twenty-five foot mid-grav shore.”</p><p>“Thirty feet is hardly possible with this archaic gyroscopic setup,” Adora scoffed, completely missing the part where something answered her in a previously assumed empty room. “The technology hasn’t been updated in over fifty years and if you－” There it was…connection made. Adora’s brain finally registered the additional presence.      </p><p> Turning very, very slowly, she scanned the room and thought she saw a shadow detach from the nearby mizzenmast trunk and slither toward her, but it had to have been her imagination because someone else was coming around the mainmast, their silhouette a slash in the semi-dark.</p><p>“Interesting,” the figure said, a hint of bemusement in its husky voice. “I didn’t recall the Captain hiring a new Rune mechanic under my nose, and I certainly didn’t ask for an apprentice.”</p><p>A jackknife of a woman stepped into the light of the moonstone, peering down at Adora in a way that made the blonde immediately swallow. If a spider could take bipedal form, this would have been its preferred shape. Viciously lean with a mop of black hair hanging loose at her shoulders and long, almost bony limbs, the woman watched Adora through the slits of a modified workman’s mask.</p><p>“My apologies,” Adora said and put up her hands as she backed away. “I didn’t mean to intrude or contradict you. I’ll leave.”</p><p>“How were you able to tell this ship has a grav-well?” the woman called, stopping Adora in her tracks.</p><p>“All air-Ships have them,” she said looking over her shoulder.</p><p>“How could you tell the depth? The moonstone hasn’t been activated yet and we’re still docked in artificial gravity.”</p><p>“Oh,” Adora blinked, unprepared for this type of engagement. “Uh, just a bit of math, really. A one ton moonstone powering three masts plus boosters would create a pretty dense gravity center in deep space, especially if it's gyroscopic. Ten feet is the minimum regulated requirements for safety－”</p><p>“I know the equation, child, and that’s not what I asked. How did you arrive at the conclusion my mathematics where wrong?”</p><p>All of a sudden, Adora was back in school staring down a teacher who, once again, didn’t believe she’d arrived at the right answer because she hadn’t shown her work. Indignation prickled between her shoulder blades, making her posture stiff and her face stony.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name,” she said instead of answering, arms folded across her chest. If Adora wasn’t mistaken, there was something off about this encounter and the way the woman demanded answers in a reproachful tone.</p><p>“Because I didn’t give it,” the red-clad woman snapped before dethawing just as fast. “You may call me Shadow Weaver. I’m the Rune mechanic on this ship, and it’s my job to make certain the crew remains safe while up in the rigging. I’ve personally designed the grav-well to extend thirty feet.”</p><p>“I understand. More than likely, I got the math wrong. Again, I apologize. I was just taken in by the moonstone.”</p><p>“No need for jumpiness,” Shadow Weaver chuckled, leaning her shoulder against the mainmast as if seconds ago she hadn’t grown spines. “I was merely curious. So few crew members understand the complexity of air-Ship propulsion. They’re more concerned with the solar-rigs than the stone.”   </p><p>Adora thought it was just a smidge strange the taller woman rested her hand against the DexPlex oval with the same gentility she spoke to the moonstone with. By god, people were beholding their own kinks so long as she was far, far away.</p><p>“Okay, well, I’m just gonna head on out and--”</p><p>“Rigger!”</p><p>Adora jumped but didn’t turn, instead giving Shadow Weaver another appraising look before shifting her attention to the angry form stalking toward her from the hall. Even after only one meeting, she recognized the voice. “Yes, Kitten?”</p><p>Her cheery grin and the honey in her voice had the intended effect of gluing Catra’s feet to the floor. She pulled up short, the pupils of her eyes contracting into razor-thin slits.</p><p>“<em>What </em>did you just call me?”</p><p>“Oh, I’m sorry,” Adora gasped with faux apology, pressing a hand to her chest. “I thought we were giving each other fun nicknames back in the galley. But if you need reminding of the name I answer to, it’s Adora. One word. Three syllables.”</p><p>Pettiness wasn’t exactly in Adora’s wheelhouse but it gave her a sense of unending delight to watch the woman’s dusky skin darken with a flush that started well below her loose shirt collar.  </p><p>“Catra.” Shadow Weaver sighed the name like even the sound of it grated her. “I do love unexpected guests, but you know from experience you don’t have the intelligence to be here in the engine room, nor are you a babysitter, unless Silver finally found a better task for you than peeling perps?”</p><p>Adora felt her mouth hit the floor but didn’t dare breathe a word as the tension in the room skyrocketed. Murder. That’s what she watched flash across Catra’s face. Pure, unadulterated murder. And just for a split second, the icy trickle was back between Adora’s shoulder blades: a shivering warning that something wasn’t quite right.</p><p>“Shouldn’t you be preparing to launch a ship, <em>Morgause? </em>Is there a reason the door wasn’t sealed with you in the control room or were you tinkering again?”</p><p>The way Catra said tinkering made Adora’s stomach knot. Rune mechanics didn’t tinker on the stones they managed. They knew them inside and out. Tinkering usually lead to mid-flight disasters of the explosive variety.</p><p>“Watch yourself, Cat. Even your fast reflexes can’t stop you from falling through thin ice.”</p><p>“Good thing I’m not stupid enough to try. <em>Adora</em>,” Catra snapped and the way her lips formed the name made it sound like a curse. “Captain’s looking for you, and I’m not her personal fucking messenger. Get to the top deck yesterday and stay out of this room. We don’t need <em>riggers </em>fucking around with equipment beyond their capabilities.”</p><p>Fists balled and back straight, Adora turned on her heels and made to brush past Catra but stopped exactly parallel to her, eyes forward and head high. “Eighty percent of this ship is powered by a one ton moonstone floating behind two inches of DexPlex at the center of the mainmast which feeds propulsion to the aft thrusters and powers the sails. Fifteen percent of the ship's regular functions and continual thrust come from a clean burning, recycling system devised of solar-rigs that pump power back into the crystal through a scrubber system designed forty years ago by Casta S. Pella, one of the forefathers of modern Spacing. The remaining five percent comes from the zero friction glide only found in space, with some propulsion lost due to the thirty-foot grav-well encapsulating the ship at all times. So you see, there’s really no room for your misplaced attitude.”   </p><p>Then, leaning forward so their noses were almost touching, Adora whispered. “You don’t want to dance with me, <em>galley cook</em>. Riggers like me learn how to fly the illegal way, and I am very good at what I do.”</p><p>Adora didn’t wait for a response and stomped out of the engine room. She might have heard a husky chuckle from Shadow Weaver that sounded like, “Oh this trip is going to be a blast,” and a snarled, “Shut up,” in response, but she didn’t pause her purposeful march up three decks to where the artificial sunlight blinded her and the noise of launch drowned out the slam of her heart.</p><p>It wasn’t hard spotting Captain Glimmer and First Mate Angella standing like picturesque oil paintings beside their helmsmen, a bipedal reptilian with face only a mother could love. Bow was with them－taking stats and readings with the instrument－and raised a shy hand in greeting when he spotted Adora. Her response was a curt, chilly nod of affirmation and nothing else. She was still smarting from Captain Glimmers’ verbal turn-down. Letting Bow suffer in silence wouldn’t kill him, and would certainly get her point across.</p><p>“You wanted to see me, Captain,” Adora said in an even tone when she joined the three on the sterncastle, making certain there was a noticeable pause between ‘me’ and ‘Captain’. Out of petty rebellion. Nothing more.</p><p>“Good of you to join us.” Glimmer nodded curtly, barely glancing at Adora. “Doctor Sagittarius requested you be present for the launch seeing as you and he are new to the experience. Look lively, we’re about to set sail.”</p><p>“How thoughtful of the Doctor.” Adora deadpanned, and Bow flushed a deep scarlet without meeting her eyes.</p><p>“At your ready, Miss Angella,” Captain Glimmer prompted, posture perfect as always as she stared across the ship, purple eyes surveying her kingdom.  </p><p>“<em>All hands to stations</em>!” Angella’s bellowed command was a whip across the shoulders of every listening crew member and a bomb in Adora’s ear. The ship erupted in activity like an agitated ant hill. Bodies fled across the deck. Bodies flew up the rigging. Bodies loosened ropes and weighed anchors, pulling and pushing lines, working the vessel like a body worked limbs and muscles.  </p><p>Among the shapes climbing the mast nets, Adora thought she saw a lean body with a wiry tail lop across a yardarm like a pike-squirrel running from a dog. She couldn’t help but scowl.  </p><p>“Loose all solar sails!” Angella called, and Adora’s heart flew into her throat.</p><p>The rail crew had unclamped the ship from the dock, allowing them to gently wade into the anti-grav shallows. They’d just cleared the first of two markers when the three mast’s unfurled their sails like enormous white and gold hexagonal clouds. The second those metallic rigs touched natural sunlight they billowed with a life all their own, soaking up energy faster than a dry sponge on a wet countertop.</p><p>Adora’s stomach swooped as boosters below pushed the <em>Etheria </em>out and away from the space port’s grav-well. Antigravity was already starting to pull the ends of her hair up.</p><p>“South by Southwest, Rogelio. Heading 2-1-0-0,” Glimmer instructed, arms held tightly behind her back. Rogelio might have responded but it was in a language Adora wasn’t familiar with, and it didn’t matter anyway because the ship had begun to turn.</p><p>She couldn’t help it. She ran to the closest railing and leaned out as far as her body would allow as the <em>Etheria</em> broke the space port’s grav-well and made a full one-eighty away from port. Adora grinned into the endless expanse spreading it’s arms in a welcome embrace. Not far in the distance, the Cerulean Nebula rotated like a cloud of milk poured into oil. Beyond that, the Dragoon Reef marked the very edge of their solar system. From that point on it was space at it’s purest.        </p><p>“Thrusters to max! Take her away!” Adora heard Miss Angella shout and ship lurched with enough forward momentum to rip the feet out from anyone who wasn’t bracing. Which meant Bow went flying. A shame.</p><p>The blast of thrust didn’t so much blow Adora’s hair back as it shifted the organs in her body and left her with the sensation she was experiencing a few Gs worth of momentum. Consequences be damned, she swung onto the railing and leaned out as far as the taught rope in her hand would allow, letting the full scope of what was happening sink in.</p><p>The pictures didn’t do it justice. Paintings were dull and lifeless by comparison. Not even the colorful facets of her imagination could have conjured something like this. After a lifetime of yearning, dreaming, and scheming, Adora Hawkins was sailing. True and honest sailing with nothing between her and the Eternia Sea but an air-Ship and a solid grav-well. Hung off the side, she was every sailor she’d ever read about. Every pirate. Every merchant. Every whispered dream of a young girl begging for adventure in the cosmos.</p><p>“Oh Mama, I wish you could see this,” she whispered into the expanse of velvet blue and churning clouds of ageless nebulas. “I finally made it. I’m a spacer. Imagine that.”</p><p>Well, she was a spacer up until the moment Captain Glimmer jerked her chain and brought her to heel.</p><p>“Miss Hawkins, in the future, please refrain from needlessly endangering your life by hanging off the sterncastle like a gaping hornbill attempting to catch fish. I don’t need you plummeting to your death within the first thirty minutes of the voyage.”</p><p>“Yes, ma’am,” Adora mumbled as she climbed down and caught a sharp snigger from above. She didn’t need to look to see who was watching, but she looked anyway. Mismatched eyes peered at her from the yardarm Catra was stretched out against, her grin the sharp kind of goading. Then she moved with a liquid kind of grace and dropped down onto the deck, hands casually in her pockets.</p><p>“Splendid. Report to Mr. Silver and begin your duties. I will summon you to my cabin at six bells for a consultation－”</p><p>“Ah, tis a grand day for sailing, Captain!”</p><p>“Speak of the devil,” Glimmer muttered under her breath before turning her full attention on the cyborg sweeping his hat off his head and jerking into a bow.</p><p>“An look at yah! You’re as trim and as bonny as a sloop new sails and a fresh coat of paint!”</p><p>Adora couldn’t fight back a laugh fast enough. It was a ridiculous greeting but it seemed on par with the man’s jolly, larger than life personality.</p><p>“You can keep that kind of twin-tongue locked behind your teeth where it belongs, Mr. Silver,” Glimmer said with a hard edge and an even harder frown. Silver, in contrast, wilted under her steely glare and backpedaled as fast as possible.</p><p>“You cut me to the quick, Captain. I speak nothing but me heart at all times.”</p><p>“I assume you’re here to collect the ship’s newest protege?”</p><p>“I’d hardly call her that.”</p><p>Adora felt her hackles rise despite her best efforts as Catra sauntered up beside her uncle, her lips twisted in a smug sneer that was bound to be an unconscious expression by this point.</p><p>“And what would you call her, Miss Silver?”</p><p>It wasn’t everyday Adora could say she was relieved to see the power of authority levered against someone else, but there was something absolutely satisfying watching Catra flinch and then bristle under Captain Glimmer’s unnerving stare. It was like the woman could see through miles of bullshit with only a passing glance.</p><p>“Unnecessary,” Catra bucked back, adding a belated, “Ma’am,” before her uncle had to smooth over the blatant misstep. “We have a full crew already, and adding an unseasoned neophyte to the mix is only going to complicate things. This isn’t a training ship, Ma’am, meant to dip one's toes into the rigors of sailing. We don’t have room for stowaways.”</p><p>“I see,” Glimmer nodded, descending the stairs one at a time with measured grace. “My decision to add Miss Hawkins to your crew has hit turbulence. A neophyte in any setting can be irksome, wouldn’t you say?”</p><p>Adora could see the bait and hook a mile away but held her tongue. Catra was a wounded seal floundering in shark-infested waters, and the meanest motherfucker had caught her scent. She was done for without even knowing it, and Adora couldn’t decide if she was relieved or terrified of what came next.</p><p>“Dangerous more than irksome. I found her wandering the engine room unattended.”</p><p><em>Oh, you snitching, son of a bitch, </em>Adora seethed.</p><p>“Did you now? Before launch? Why weren’t the doors locked?”</p><p>It was there. Just a twitch in the corner of her eyes, but Adora saw Catra flinch.</p><p>“Interesting. I’ll have to speak with the mechanic about that. But,” Glimmer brightened and the smile that split her face was the grin of a shark surfacing, “since you appear to be so <em>on top </em>of Miss Hawkins’ misadventures aboard <em>my</em> air-Ship, I’m appointing you to train her properly in the ways of professional sailing.”</p><p>There it was. The hook. It bit into Catra’s metaphorical cheek and ripped her off her feet, whatever contrived plan she’d cooked up falling away as she hit the shore and struggled for air.</p><p>“I’m not going to--”</p><p>“Argue this decision!” Silver jumped in, physically shoving his niece behind him hard enough she almost lost her footing. Almost. “A grand decision, Captain. Cat could use a hand around the galley and Ace needs the teaching. Saints know I’ve got tah feed the lot of yah, an it takes most of my day away from me! We’ll get started straight away!”</p><p>“Good. See that you do,” Glimmer nodded, her smile retreating from whence it came.</p><p>“Come along, Ace! I’ll give yah the rundown of how things work an we’ll set you up with some chores.”</p><p>“Oh boy,” Adora whispered sarcastically under her breath, aware a pair of mismatched eyes were boring into her skull.</p><p>“Miss Hawkins,” Glimmer called, pulling her to a standstill. “I won’t repeat myself. The engine room is off-limits to anyone except the mechanic. Do not step foot into it again or you’ll spend the remainder of the voyage in the brig, am I clear?”</p><p>“Of course, Ma’am. My mistake for wandering in the first place. Something to consider,” she said, stopping the Captain from turning away fully. “Your grav-well calibrations are off. The mechanic has it wrong. It’s not thirty feet, it’s fifteen. In case you wanted to make sure no one floats to their death. And your rev system could do with a scrubbing. In case you were wondering what that smell was after launch. Coolant leak. Easy fix, but I’m sure your mechanic is fixing it.”</p><p>Glimmer shot her a quick glance Adora only half saw, but she imagined, just for a moment, a splinter of doubt worked its way into the Captain.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Hard Lessons</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You guys....this chapter fought me tooth and nail. I just could not get it to work and probably rewrote it four or five times before I got to a point where I like it enough to publish. Filler chapters are the hardest for me, and since I can't just roll a montage that shows time/character progression, here we are! </p><p>Hope you enjoy! With this out of the way, I can finally move toward the stuff I want to write xD</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Those first few weeks after launch were rocky, as it was with all new beginnings. Transitions were seldom smooth, and the new lessons brought with it left behind abrasions to harden like callouses over blisters. Adora was acquiring quite a few of each, lessons and callouses, in equal measure.</p>
<p>With no choice but to follow Glimmer’s orders, Catra put Adora to work with a schedule bordering on the sadistic. It was a gauntlet of duties designed to keep her moving from the time she was unceremoniously dumped from her bunk－the first few times this happened Adora nursed a bloody nose through half her morning chores－to the time Adora passed out late in the evening. It wasn’t hard to gather she was being tested－and maybe punished for someone else’s inability to keep their mouth shut－pushed like a horse to lather just to see how long it took for her heart to give out.</p>
<p>Too fucking bad for Catra, Adora was made for spacing and wasn’t about to hand off her leash to someone willing to hang her with it just to watch her feet swing. If surviving this voyage meant she had to knuckle down and force her worthiness down every throat on the ship she would start with Catra and work her way around.</p>
<p>Though getting Catra to do anything other than sneer and throw insults was like trying to get a boat to turn with a broken rudder. They were her two best forms of communication next to physical intimidation, which she only attempted once with Adora. They’d gone forehead to forehead over an argument in the kitchen. It had taken Silver physically shoving himself between them to break it off.</p>
<p>Adora left the galley in a simmering huff but not before watching Silver take Catra by the back of the neck with his bionic arm and push her so far forward her knees almost buckled. Whatever he was growling in her ear was hot-tempered and venomous, and Adora didn’t want to stick around for the aftermath.</p>
<p>From that point forward, Adora made it her mission to blow past Catra’s expectations at every turn out of pure, petty spite.</p>
<p>Within the first week, she set a blistering pace that not only rankled Catra’s nerves but caught Captain Glimmer’s attention. At least once she complemented Catra on “stepping up and taking the initiative”, but Adora knew as well as Catra it had nothing to do with her “training skills” and everything to do with Adora showing her up at every turn and making her look the fool.</p>
<p>“What? You expected a landstrider with soft hands?” Adora scoffed once when she landed on the deck after securing the foremast. Her red, sleeveless top clung to her skin from sweat and her arms were shaking, but Adora’s grin was a razor. “Wipe that surprise off your face, Kitten. You know I can and will run circles around you. Keep up.”</p>
<p>Ego usually mixed with spite about as smoothly as oil on water. Or in this case, oil and fire. Adora knew she was playing with matches, but a part of her didn’t care. The rush of finally sailing after only dreaming about it for years was enough to dull the edges of self-preservation.</p>
<p>But Catra wasn’t a candle with a short wick. She was a powder keg with a longer fuse than Adora realized.  </p>
<p>“Stop bitching. You get used to it,” Lonnie, a sinewy girl with skin the color of a dust storm, playfully shoved Adora one evening into their sixth week of sailing as she rubbed a particularly angry muscle in her shoulder. They had just finished stowing the last of the extra rigging and Adora was feeling the burn. “If you can, find something round like a ball or a wad of rope and roll it over the sore spot. Works like a charm.”</p>
<p>Lonnie was the ship’s Bosun’s Mate in charge of the sails and rigging maintenance. Watching her scale the catch nets and run along the yardarms was like watching an acrobat. More than once, Adora felt her stomach catch when the woman would make a daring leap for a rope into midair with nothing below her but a thirty-foot fall and an unforgiving deck.</p>
<p>“I’d actually kill for some Sun Balm,” Adora said, giving up the rubbing in lieu of rotating her arms.</p>
<p>Lonnie laughed, hitching her hip on the railing. “We don’t have fancy shit like that around here. You’d have better luck having Rogelio go at it with those meaty hands of his.”</p>
<p>Rogelio growled a reply in his language to which Lonnie raised a middle finger. He was Lonnie’s best mate and the ship’s Helmsmen who spoke in a dialect Adora couldn’t even begin to replicate.</p>
<p>“What’s fancy about Sun Balm?” Adora laughed back. “You can buy it anywhere! I had a surplus stock of it back at home.”</p>
<p>Lonnie motioned to the nebula they were sliding past, it’s purple and yellow arms reaching toward the ship. “Limited cargo means even those small containers are worth their weight in gold. Guess you’ll just have to suck it up like the rest of us.”</p>
<p>“You could always get meds from the doc!” a short waif of a boy named Kyle chirped. His skinny frame looked positively frail seated in Rogelio’s lap. “They have painkillers.”</p>
<p>“Meant for actual emergencies,” Lonnie rolled her eyes.</p>
<p>“I’d count this as one.”</p>
<p>“You count a splinter as an emergency,” she teased.</p>
<p>“That was a really bad splinter, okay! It got infected! I thought I’d lose my finger.”</p>
<p>Rogelio looked down at the boy in his lap and said something Adora wasn’t able to translate, but Kyle went beat red and stopped talking, so it must have been something embarrassing.</p>
<p>“Rigger!”</p>
<p>And just like that, the good feelings died.</p>
<p>Adora closed her eyes against the spiteful name making contact with the back of her head like hail in a storm. Never her name. Never just Adora. It was always, “Rigger, coil the ropes and check the knots. <em>Correctly </em>this time.”</p>
<p>“Rigger, the pans need cleaning, get on it. No, I’m not helping. I have actual chores to get done.”</p>
<p>“Rigger, this is how you tie a fisherman’s knot. Fucking Saints, do it right.”</p>
<p>Rigger</p>
<p>Rigger</p>
<p>Rigger</p>
<p>Over and over again. It got to the point Adora sagged with relief whenever Silver called her Ace or Bow called her Adora. Even a clipped “Miss Hawkins” was better than the half-spit curse of “Rigger”.</p>
<p>“Yes, my liege?” Adora turned to face her perpetually dark shadow, a fake smile painted across her face.</p>
<p>“You chumming it up doesn’t count as working,” Catra said, gesturing to the group like they were part of the problem.</p>
<p>“Nope, but four sails stowed certainly does,” Adora quipped, jabbing a thumb over her shoulder.</p>
<p>“I’m so glad you know how to tie a knot.” Catra was in a mood today. Much like yesterday…and the day before that. The woman was a certifiable coal fire. Always burning and burning and burning… “But last I checked, you’re not part of the sail crew. You’re with the galley, and the galley is where you’re needed, understand? Or do I need to say it slower?”</p>
<p>Adora’s cheeks reddened but she didn’t budge, determined to hold her ground. Catra loved to pull shit like this. Silver would give her a chore she would in turn pass off to Adora after making it ten times harder by adding extra steps. It was like a game, and Adora was done dicking around.</p>
<p>“I’m staying with the sail crew.” Adora folded her arms across her chest, stubbornness locking her spine. “Stack the boxes yourself like Silver told you to do. I’ll catch up with him tonight.”</p>
<p>It was like watching storm clouds overtake sunny skies. Catra’s face darkened, the perpetual sneer twisting her lips deepening into a growl. “That was an order.”</p>
<p>“Last I checked, you’re not a QM anymore, Catra,” Lonnie cut in. “That privilege sailed away six weeks ago. You’re just a grunt now, and Adora’s got room to roam. So why don’t you be on your way.”  </p>
<p>“Don’t you have some ropes to hang yourself with like your father did?” Catra snapped without missing a beat or taking her eyes off the blonde. Adora’s jaw hit the deck, but Lonnie didn’t even flinch.</p>
<p>“Hard to say,” she shrugged as she pulled away from the railing. “Your parents used too much of it on themselves. Don’t you have a grease fire to start?”</p>
<p>“Fuck you, rope swinger.”</p>
<p>“God,” Lonnie forced out a laugh, bending in half, “your daddy did you a disservice naming you Catra. <em>Cuntra </em>would have fit you better.”</p>
<p>Adora winced so hard her face puckered like she’d eaten something sour.</p>
<p>“<em>What</em> did you say?” Catra bristled, and Adora suddenly got the distinct feeling she was pinned between two arguing parents with nowhere to go. It dawned on her this argument might not have anything to do with her, but wherever it was going wouldn’t end well for anyone.</p>
<p>“Those pretty ears of yours are sharp, so I know you heard me.” Lonnie moved closer, boiling away the comfortable space between them. “You’ve been a fucker since launch. Shit, since <em>before </em>that, and for what? Cause you had to take on a neophyte, or because you got kicked out of your usual role with Silver due to someone’s terrible aim?”</p>
<p>Catra’s ears flattened, a sure sign Lonnie struck a tender nerve. “You don’t know shit about anything, least of all what happened.”</p>
<p>“Don’t need to. Proof is standing right in front of me. News flash, Catra, and I know this is new to you so I’ll take it slow. You ain’t shit and never were. You just happened to be better with a blade than most of us, so go stack your own fucking crates and think about what put you there in the first place.”</p>
<p>Adora felt the hiss as much as she heard it, and for half a second she contemplated how hard it would be to climb over the side of the ship and disappear. It wasn’t a secret Lonnie and Catra had past history and butted heads more often than not, but this was on a whole other level.</p>
<p>Aim?</p>
<p>Blades?</p>
<p>Punishment?</p>
<p>What was this crew?</p>
<p>“Aww,” Lonnie mockingly stuck out her bottom lip, “looks like I found a sore－”</p>
<p>Adora didn’t see Catra move, but her fits connected hard enough with Lonnie’s chin it sent her stumbling. Pressing her attack, Catra lunged low for a blow meant to take the breath from the woman’s lungs, but Lonnie’s recovery was as fast as Catra’s strike. She blocked the oncoming fist, trading it for a sobering crack across Catra’s cheek.</p>
<p>“Finally! I’ve been waiting <em>two years</em> to do this.” Bouncing from foot to foot, Lonnie rolled her shoulders and flexed her fingers into a tight fist.</p>
<p>Adora might not have been with the crew long, but it was enough time to learn Catra wasn’t someone you wanted to goad into a fight. Her shitty attitude was backed by the fact the woman was scrappy and very, very hard to pin down. She also came armed with nature’s perfect offensive weapons and moved like a flash of sunlight on water.</p>
<p>So stepping in was more about preventing a murder than risking being caught fighting by Miss Angella.</p>
<p>“Both of you stop! This isn’t--”</p>
<p>“You’re fucking dead,” Catra hissed, making to dive around Adora to get to Lonnie. It was just bad luck Adora was a smidge faster and caught her by the hem of her black trousers, throwing her back.</p>
<p>“I said, stop! If Miss Angella catches us, we’re all getting the whip!”</p>
<p>“Get the fuck out of my way, Adora!”</p>
<p>“No!”</p>
<p>“Come on, Catra. You’re going to let her stop you?”</p>
<p>“Shut the fuck up, Lonnie!” Adora snapped over her shoulder, but she shouldn’t have taken her eyes off Catra.</p>
<p>Planted like a wall between the two, Adora didn’t anticipate Catra physically <em>climbing</em> over her to get to Lonnie. The bite of the woman’s hind claws digging into her thigh made her hiss in pain, but it was nothing compared to the furry of having the front pair rip up her arm and shoulder in an attempt to dive over Adora’s head.</p>
<p><em>Deescalate! Deescalate! Deescalate!</em> her mind shrieked as she struggled to hold Catra back from tearing her front to ribbons, her slippery reputation coming as she twisted like a fish on a line, taking slivers of flesh with her.</p>
<p>Adora didn’t mean to throw her as hard as she did. She just needed the snarling, hissing, feral feline off her for two seconds so she could think, but either adrenaline was giving her strength a boost or Catra was much lighter than she thought because a hard twist of Adora’s hip and a twitch of her shoulders sent the woman flying ten feet into the foremast with enough force to render her senseless.</p>
<p>“Fucking Saints,” Lonnie breathed, disentangling herself from Adora’s now slack fingers. If Adora had been looking at her she might have seen the confusion in Lonnie’s eyes because when had Adora gotten taller?</p>
<p>Lying prone on her side, Catra groaned and shifted onto her stomach as cognition returned, blinking the haze from her skull. Startled by her own show of strength, Adora crossed half the distance to where Catra lay when a shout froze them all in place.</p>
<p>“What’s going on here!” Miss Angella’s voice cracked across the deck, drawing everyone to a standstill. The First Mate’s eyes skipped between the three, taking in their tussled appearances and the blood seeping through Adora’s shirt. “I thought I made it clear at the start of this voyage there would be no brawling on this ship.”</p>
<p>Adora’s stomach bottomed out at the memory.</p>
<p>A scuffle had broken out between crew members a week after launch. She only caught the tail end, but Miss Angella apprehended both individuals and ordered them tied to the port railing. She informed the assembled crew that those caught engaging in any form of physical altercation would receive six lashes. Repeat offenses would receive twelve, and those unable to adhere to the rule of law could be sentenced to Floating.</p>
<p>To say that decree had scared Adora to death would have been an understatement.</p>
<p>Floating was a Spacer’s death sentence. The offending crew member was taken to the top of the crow’s nest and shackled to the mast. Then the grav-well was reduced until they were exposed to the pure crushing vacuum of open space. Without gravity, they would begin to float while suffocating.</p>
<p>“No, Ma’am. No brawling,” Lonnie said with an easy smile like moments ago she hadn’t been punched in the face. “Just a game of keep-away that got a little rough. Our apologies for the foolery.”</p>
<p>Adora had to admit the lie was excellently executed. Kyle and Rogelio－who hadn’t made a move since the first fist flew－followed along, nodding in affirmation when Miss Angella’s steely gaze landed on them.</p>
<p>“Miss Hawkins.” She rotated on the balls of her feet like a toy soldier, locking Adora in place. “Is this true?”</p>
<p><em>Oh fuck</em>.</p>
<p>Adora didn’t dare look to the others for help, knowing the moment she broke eye contact it would be an admission of guilt and the lie would unravel. “It is, Ma’am.”</p>
<p>“I see. By the state of your shirt, I think otherwise.” Miss Angella walked closer, her height making it so Adora had to crane her neck to meet her gaze. “Do you want to revisit your previous answer with a truthful one?”</p>
<p>She didn’t need to look to know what the First Mate was talking about. Adora could feel the sting of her cuts and knew what she’d find that night in the showers. Instead, she played along with Lonnie’s ignorance. “I’m sorry, Ma’am. I didn’t even notice. We were fooling around like Lonnie said. I should know better than to keep a ball of string away from a cat. You know…sharp claws.”</p>
<p>From her pocket, Adora retrieved a knotted ball of practice rope she always carried to help work herself through complicated knots. After offering Miss Angella her best, chastized smile, she slipped past to help Catra to her feet, praying the woman played along or they were all royally fucked.</p>
<p>“Sorry, Catra. Should have known better than to hide it in my pocket. You win this round.”</p>
<p>Hand out, Adora pleaded with her eyes as much as possible for Catra to play along. From her seated position against the mast, stormy blue and yellow eyes stared up at Adora’s extended hand, face locked in wary calculation. She held the blonde’s blue gaze for a beat longer than needed before taking the offered hand and stood.</p>
<p>“Apologies,” she bowed to Miss Angella, her voice a little more breathy than normal. Adora noticed she was favoring her right side but didn’t let herself linger. “I have…a fondness for string and just can’t help myself sometimes. Won’t happen again, Ma’am.”</p>
<p>Miss Angella didn’t look the least bit convinced, but with no actual evidence of a brawl and no one ratting on the other, she had no grounds for physical punishment.</p>
<p>“See to it this foolishness doesn’t happen again. Miss Hawkins, report to the med bay to get those scratches looked at. The rest of you, be on your way.”  </p>
<p>Catra stalked away the moment Miss Angella left, heading for the galley with a scowl that could burn a hole through the hull if she focused hard enough.</p>
<p>“What the actual fuck is your malfunction?” Adora rounded on Lonnie the moment they were alone.</p>
<p>“Don’t get weird on me now, Adora. Catra had that coming.”</p>
<p>“Next time you want to pick a fight do it while I’m not around! I’m already public enemy number one with her. I don’t need her pissing in my soup any more than she already does.”</p>
<p>“Sometimes you just gotta put people in their place. Catra’s had that coming. She’s been a raging bitch for weeks, and I’m frankly tired of it. Look, a little unsolicited advice because I think you’re cool, Catra hates everyone. She makes everyone’s life a living hell because she’s got a complex. If you lock horns with her, she’ll respect you a smidge more and <em>maybe</em> let up.”</p>
<p>“Or she’ll kill me in my sleep!”</p>
<p>“Just watch,” Lonnie waved a dismissive hand. “For the next few weeks, she won’t come near us. She’ll sulk in her gray little corner and we’ll be happier for it.”</p>
<p>Which Adora didn’t believe would happen at all, but shocker of shockers, Catra did exactly what Lonnie predicted. Adora wasn’t flipped out of her bunk the next morning or the morning after that. Catra didn’t shriek orders at her or shoot insults like they were poison darts. On the rare occasion she spoke to Adora it was to give her a list of chores to do and then she stalked off to be somewhere else.</p>
<p>The reprieve was a godsend, if there even was a god.</p>
<p>A week after the scuffle, Adora worked her way along the horizontal yardarm of the mizzenmast to the coil of rope Lonnie needed her to untie so the sail below could unfurl and absorb the ambient radiation from the nebula they were passing. Narrow-focused, Adora didn’t notice the tail of rope directly under her boot until it was jerked out from under her. The effect was like tripping on a loose rug. One second she was standing with careful balance and the next her chest was connecting with the yardarm with all the force of a speeding grav-sled, driving the breath from her lungs.</p>
<p>Adora couldn’t afford the luxury of being knocked senseless. Her body knew she was thirty feet above the deck with no net to catch her.</p>
<p>Wheezing like a bellows with a hole in it, Adora scrambled to secure a grip as the ship’s gravity worked against her, but the yardarm was thicker than a grown man’s torso and lacquered. She might as well have been trying to wrap her arms around a greased pig. Legs pumping uselessly in the air, she managed to keep from sliding to her death by digging her nails into the coils of rope wrapped around the circular wood.</p>
<p>“Hey, <em>Adora</em>.”</p>
<p>Whipping her head around, Adora’s wide, terrified eyes locked on Catra balanced on the yardarm a few feet from her. Shoulder against the mast, she regarded her like someone might observe a bug struggling in a spider’s grip, tail curling and uncurling around her leg in a vaguely coy manner. In one of her free hands hung a length of rope.</p>
<p>“Catra,” Adora choked, her shoulder blades beginning to seize and scream from holding all her weight in one place. Slowly, agonizingly, she began to slip as the sweat of her arms coated the wood. “Catra…please. Help.”</p>
<p>“But you're the natural-born Spacer,” she mocked with a sideways grin, not budging an inch. “You could run circles around me, remember? How’d you manage to forget your lifeline?” She let the rope slip from her fingers with an ‘oops’ tilt of her head.</p>
<p>It didn’t take a genius to realize what was happening, and Adora’s heart made the trip from her body to the deck where it smashed to pieces.</p>
<p>“Please don’t do this,” she begged, gritting her teeth in an effort to keep upright. If she shifted or tried to reach for a safety hold she would fall, and Catra wasn’t making any move to help. Quite the opposite. She was reveling.</p>
<p>As casually as if it was a lovely spring day, Catra walked along the yard with a lazy grace until she stood directly over Adora and crouched with her hands on her knees, bringing their faces uncomfortably close. Adora could smell the weak rum on her breath and the natural musk clinging to her tunic.</p>
<p>“It’s humbling, isn’t it? Being at the mercy of a force of nature. But you’re all too familiar with gravity, aren’t you, Rigger?”</p>
<p>“Catra－”</p>
<p>“I think this is a pretty important lesson for you, Adora,” she continued, looking out at the ship like she was surveying her kingdom. “I’d have Floated you a long time ago if you were on my ship, but this works well enough.”</p>
<p>When Catra returned her gaze to the woman below there was nothing to her face. No emotion. No expression. No happiness or smug triumph. She was as cold and dead as a planet starved of sunlight.</p>
<p>“You’re not immune to consequences, of my design or otherwise, and this smug little act of yours has gone on long enough. You’re not meant to be here, Adora. You’re not a part of this enterprise. You’re not a Spacer. You’re just the outer bank's trash we picked up trailing behind a boy with a lot of money. You have your uses, but you’re a poser like all the rest of your landlocked kind. My crew was born in the skies. You’ve squatted in the mud until a few weeks ago and somehow think you’ve earned the wings to fly among us.”</p>
<p>Try as she might, Adora couldn’t hold on anymore. Strength failing, she felt a sob constrict her throat－tears cutting lines down her face－as gravity reinstated itself and dragged her over the edge.</p>
<p>Freefall wasn’t something Adora was unaccustomed to. She’d let herself fall from greater heights than this, but there was always something to catch her on the way down. This time, nothing separated her from the harsh reality of hitting a solid deck from thirty feet up. But the moment her equilibrium registered the sensation of falling her movement was arrested by something grabbing the front of her shirt. The sudden stop jarred her enough the scream building in her chest popped before it could push its way free.</p>
<p>Catra caught her.</p>
<p>Catra was holding her aloft in midair, her clawed feet anchoring her to the yard.</p>
<p>The how and why didn’t matter. Adora immediately grabbed the woman’s slender wrists and held on for dear life as she was pulled back to safety. But before Catra let her go, she leaned in one more time, her muggy breath in Adora’s ear.</p>
<p>“Don’t you ever get between me and one of my crew members again, or the next time you fall it will be with a rope around your neck. The only reason you’re not dead on the deck is because now you owe me,” Catra growled before pulling Adora the rest of the way to salvation and dumping her on the yardarm.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Oooooh boy, here we go XD Catra is so charming....just the best.</p><p>Hope you all enjoyed the read! Please don't forget to kudo and comment =D I love chatting with you all!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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